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Linux Secure Enough For The Army
LordPixie writes " As summarized over at Defense Tech, the U.S. Army is soon to be infected with the infamous OSS virus. They have chosen Linux as the operating system for the abysmally named 'System of Systems Common Operating Environment,' a part of Army's planned Future Combat Systems."
they ordered about US$4.7e8 worth of Microsoft products for the next 6 years.
I'll give them credit for covering both options, though.
OTOH, it's possible they could have got a better deal waving around a credible FOSS initiative, like others have done recently.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The term "system of systems" refers to the fact that FCS is meant to allow the army to be able to reconfigure things easily and rapidly to allow the technology to be used for a wide range of missions. Yeah, it sounds a bit strange if you're not used to the terminology but they do pick these phrases, acronyms, and words for a reason. You can read more about FCS here. Basically, the idea is to use a collection of smaller, more manueverable vehicles (including tanks, guns, as well as unmanned ground and aerial vehicles) to accomplish a wide array of military missions. FCS will lack the heavy armor (e.g., 70 ton tanks) that we currently have which could make the force more susceptible to destruction. The advantage of using a lighter force, however, is that it doesn't take them so long to set up, they can move pretty quickly, and don't require as much support equipment and supplies (e.g., fuel). The army plans to make the lighter FCS unit survivable through a lot of fancy communication and data-sharing technologies. So the fact that they have decided to choose Linux is reasonably signficant. FCS will rely very heavily on the quality of their software.
GMD
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As a sys admin for the military, most of us complain about our dependence on a private company in the government sector. This will allow the Army to create what they need, and add what they need, themselves. Computers in combat environments do things that no off the shelf software was designed to do. Most of our stuff has to be home brewed or contracted out. Linux gives the military more flexiblity in this field. I wish I could run linux on our client/server systems for desktops, but I'm stuck with Windows for now. We do run Unix for many of our supply systems... Unfortunately that Unix platform was provided by SCO..... Many years ago....
This news is that Linux has been chosen as THE os for the future replacing the other OSes currently in use. This is a far greater story.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Most of the military embedded, comms and simulation systems have traditionally been developed on a Unix platforms, and the embedded work was typically done with VxWorks.
Migrating to linux means minimal porting costs from Unix platforms, it means preservation of the skill set already developed in military R&D outfits (FFRDCs) and it means freeing various corners of that world from the commercial interests of providers of proprietary *nix platforms. It also opens up a whole world of development environments for embedded systems. Porting from Unix to Linux can be combined with a refactoring exercise to make those systems more reliable, too -- whereas porting to say Windows -- would just be a complete mess. An ever-changing mess, as MS issues a never-ending stream of binary patches and updates and API changes and has a never ending string of vulnerabilities that cannot be patched in the field because nobody has the source.
Linux is the logical choice, the rational choice for these systems from the standpoint of simplifying and unifying software development processes, having access to a greater range of development tools, and for making these systems more reliable. The cost benefits of the software systems reliability, simplicity and visibility considerations compounds the savings on the licensing fees.
Those MS licenses they're also getting? Windows machines are used for administrative purposes -- think glorified typewriter, not the next guided missile system. It was far more worrying (and completely unrealistic, and probably politically motivated) when the military was considering standardizing their systems on MS--which is like hiring a secretary to drive a tank.
Linux will be the underpinnings of all the systems in the C&C and operations systems of the FCS. This has nothing to do with Army day-to-day operations or other existing combat systems.
It's a specific fighting force that they plan on employing in the future. It's very exciting stuff though.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I would have figured that the Military would have been using Linux precisely because the open source tools and encryption possibilites are really well defined, and free of costs. With a bit of skill, a competant Linux sysadmin can make a RAID driven encrytped fileserver with ssh access and a solid firewall (and even Samba serving to windows clients) using current open source software, and without needing to pay for software. That, if anything, puts Linux ahead of just about any other commerical operating system out there, as far as the military's purposes are concerned.
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