US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/06/08/us_navy_linux_drones/

by stfu • 14 years ago

24 27 14 years ago

theregister.co.uk

mtgx• 14 years ago

They were controlling drones...with Windows XP? Oh my. Don't tell me they were logging through IE6, too.

ktizo• 14 years ago

Military procurement methods plus a culture of contract outsourcing do produce some amusing outcomes sometimes.

petercooper• 14 years ago

Had some fun on a Virgin Atlantic flight the other day. Entertainment system wasn't working and got to watch an attendant rebooting into Windows 98 over and over.. turns out the reason it takes 30+ minutes for the system to "reboot" is because ScanDisk is forced to run on every boot.

tantalor• 14 years ago

  The US government can directly combine GPL and 
  proprietary/classified software into a single program 
  arbitrarily, as long as the result is never conveyed 
  outside the U.S. government

Just to be clear, this is true for any organization using GPL materials, correct?

pmorici• 14 years ago

Yes, though, as I understand it in this case the government is the user and the developer where as a lot of large companies avoid sharing changes by offering their software as a web service (ie: they don't have to distribute the binary) something which I believe changes to the GPL in v3 were supposed to address.

angusgr• 14 years ago

You're thinking of AGPL for requiring source distribution when offering a service over a network.

IANAL but I don't believe GPLv3 changes anything over GPLv2 in this case, although it does tighten up some loopholes in v2 over what does and does not qualify as "distribution" (although in all cases the end user is still sent the software to run on their hardware, not just the results of the software.)

ConstantineXVI• 14 years ago

The AGPL variant has a clause for web services, AFAIK the vanilla GPLv3 does no such thing.

zerohp• 14 years ago

Even if the government was buying it from Raytheon, this would only mean that the government must receive a copy of the source code under the GPL. It does not mean the software must be distributed freely to everyone.

As I understand it.

voodoochilo3• 14 years ago

asked rms few months ago if it wouldn't make sense to change the gpl in the direction of "no military use allowed". he replied that would destroy the "free software philosophy". i disagree. hate the idea that human beings are killed with the help of gnu/linux and/or free software.

why-el• 14 years ago

I have to agree with rms here. No X allowed is inherently anti-free software. In cases like this one has to think long term, as in how freer software can lead to freer societies, i.e. societies that escape government coercion. That itself I think will lead to a significant decrease in military activity because free uncoerced citizens can stop their governments from engaging in such self-destructive acts.

voodoochilo3• 14 years ago

i know this all-or-nothing-argument and yes it is correct. it's about purity of the idea of free software, but killing humans is not pure. so how can the idea stay pure therefore?

and what do i tell my grandchildren if the ask me one day: "grandpa, why exactly did you write that big while-switch-statement which killed 6.000.000 people in 2016?"

jen_h2• 14 years ago

They are also protected by it; the sword has a few edges.

SkyMarshal• 14 years ago

Linux is a tool that can used, or misused, for any purpose. Attack the use, not the tool.

espeed• 14 years ago

Douglas Crockford's JSLInt and JSON license include the clause:

  The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

http://www.json.org/license.html

And JSLint was not used in Red Hat because of this (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=455507) or Pylons (https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pylons-devel/rggWC8JVeAM/rQ6...).

cema• 14 years ago

Many people would claim the military use is intended for the Good. Opinions differ.

metaobject• 14 years ago

In this case, at least, these drones only carry recon/surveillance payloads - I believe the article said "non-weaponized" or something to that effect.

jen_h2• 14 years ago

First of all, how in the world are they "buying" Linux from Raytheon? They're apparently buying 28M of "services" from Raytheon, not "Linux."

Second of all, what's up with all the stuff that one would think should be classified info showing up all over the media lately?

PKop• 14 years ago

Political cheer-leading in an election year.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/06/08/obama-im-offended-that...

cldrope• 14 years ago

Linkbait.

niels_olson• 14 years ago

Now if only I could get Linux on my Navy desktop, instead of winXP under NMCI. I have all but fired my issued desktop and do as much as possible on my iPad and MacBook.

michaelcampbell• 14 years ago

Is virtualbox (or some other VM) not an option for you?

koala_advert• 14 years ago

Guess they went with Redhat then?

US Navy buys Linux to guide drone fleet

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