Of course every pilot should make sure that his FLARM is working before each season and before each takeoff.

Of course the FLARM team should encourage all pilots to upgrade to the latest firmware.

The question is how should the FLARM team do that? A graceful degradation in performance coupled with annoying beeps, as some have suggested, is surely preferable to ceasing to function altogether, especially given that lives may be at stake and not just the lives of those who failed to upgrade their firmware, but also the lives of those who's FLARM firmware is up-to-date, but who may end up colliding with someone who's FLARM is disabled because the firmware is out of date.

Branko
XYU