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UK Demands Sourcecode for Strike Fighters
An anonymous reader writes ""The UK has warned America that it will cancel its £12bn order for the Joint Strike Fighter if the US does not hand over full access to the computer software code that controls the jets"
Lord Drayson, minister for defense procurement, told the The Daily Telegraph that the planes were useless without control of the software as they could effectively be "switched off" by the Americans without warning."
Gee, give us a few jets and we'll get right on writing Open Source Software for them...
Well after 1776 and 1812, can ya blame America for a little fail-safe? /tongue_in_cheek
America's reticence to hand over the source code has nothing to do with national security and everything to do with embarrassment. Why? The plane's control software in Visual Basic.
Maybe they'll post it on Sourceforge ;)
More info about the Joint Strike Fighter's navigation software here.
Lockheed's chief scientist, Dr. Gaius Baltar, stated last Friday: "There is absolutely, I repeat, absolutely, no way that the Joint Strike Fighters could be shut down with a software instruction".
"OK, Kahn. Here it comes....."
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Or, would I buy something as critical as an operating system without having access to its source code...oh...wait, nevermind.
if enemy.shot_down
cockpit_announce("Top Gun!");
kill_count += 1;
if kill_count > 5
cockpit_announce("Killing Spree!");
end
end
...the americans don't want anybody to discover that they've used chunks of GPL code
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
If the security at the manufacturer is as good as the Department of Homeland Security's, I guess it will be all over teh intarwenbs within a week or so anyway.
For the third straight year, the Department of Homeland Security -- which is charged with charting the federal government's cyber security agenda -- earned a grade of "F" for computer security
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Why not just return the missiles? Saves on postage and packing, and has a very low rate of vendor complaints afterwards. ;-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
We are at peace with the Brits; We have always been at peace with the Brits. =)
http://outcampaign.org/
So, basically, you're suggesting the Gentoo Strike Fighter or GSF. If I read at least part of your intentions correctly, you imply that every foreign buyer should essentially:
emerge fighter-software
on every piece of imported equipment.
"Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things."
First off all; I dont think parent tries to be funny, so stop the mad moding.
/. readers relate better to cars, remote controled alarms and crack heads than they do to high level politics and advanced military equipment.
:p
Second; I think many
Third; Even I find it rather rude comparing the us military to a crackhead. In some contries embasies are tourtched over cartoons, good knows what this could result in
www.aleo.no