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U.S. Refuses to Hand Over Fighter Source Code to UK
orbitalia writes "The UK is heavily involved in the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter program) but has recently considered abandoning the project because the US refuses to share the source code. The UK had intended to purchase $120 billion dollars worth of aircraft to operate on two new aircraft carriers, but is now seriously considering Plan 'B'. This is likely to be further investments in the Eurofighter Typhoon project." From the article: "It appeared that Tony Blair and George Bush had solved the impasse in May, when they announced an agreement in principle that the UK would be given access to the classified details on conditions of strict secrecy. The news was widely seen as evidence that the Prime Minister's close alliance with the American President did have benefits for Britain ... 'If the UK does not obtain the assurances it needs from the US then it should not sign the Memorandum of Understanding covering production, sustainment and follow-on development,' the MPs insisted."
The EuroFighter is a much more advanced fighter anyway. The JSF is the US Military just trying to "Cut Costs" by consolodating which seems to be what most of the military is doing. Pretty soon a tin can will do everything from cook a meal to shoot off a nuke
It is not often that world events show us just how deadly serious a problem it is to keep source code hidden from those who use the software on which it is based. Somehow I am not surprised that the petulant little child George Bush won't hand over the code. But I am glad he is drawing attention to the problem of closed source code and the danger it poses to all of us.
"The UK had intended to purchase $120 billion dollars worth of aircraft to operate on two new aircraft carriers, but is now seriously considering Plan 'B'. This is likely to be further investments in the Eurofighter Typhoon project.""
Possibly. Or they could throw some open source code in, and be done with it.
...give me the ROFLcopter!!!
they make aircraft from programs now?
As unpopular as any kind of ground strike other than laser-guided has become politically, I have to wonder why the UK or the US would continue to waste money on these machines. They are not as stealthy as the current F-117, which is apparently all that will be in use for some time to come. Close air support is no longer granted unless the target is in a location which can absolutely guarantee no collateral damage. This means that CAS is no longer granted. If you are lucky you might get a helo with a chaingun. What a waste of money from the budget of both countries.
the article clearly states that Britain was going to spend $12 billion, not $120 billion. Would would spend $120 billion for something like this?
If that does't work, there should at least be a LGPL version, right?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I am not sure how to interpret this. Does it mean that if the UK request the source code with a license to make changes then they get the code 20 days later and presumably come up with their own version after a year (at best?). Or do they get the code up front with the ability to request a license to deploy modified versions on application?
The second interpretation makes more sense to me.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Poor Tony the Poodle Blair. Kisses ass, and gets treated like a lapdog.
Oh wait...
Al Quida probably already has it and would sell it to the UK for a discount. After all, they cracked our radio codes in Somolia.
Table-ized A.I.
12bn pounds not 120 billion dollars
Every country involved has been told the same thing. And more importantly, all co developers are PROHIBITED from installing their own avionics.
The American military machine, touted as the strongest, most efficient, lethal, modern and advanced, has just got a beating from AK-47 wielding thugs of IRAQ. The sad thing is that it has takes three years and almost 3,000 coalition deaths for the military authorities to acknowledge this. You no longer hear statements like "bring them on"..."We'll prevail"..."stay the course"...
Who tells these military folks that the so called modern weapon systems win today's wars?
Look, the Europeans and Americans can produce all the weapon systems they want...even with their massive debts and budget deficits. But in the end, a guerrilla with a reliable weapon like the AK-47, is more lethal than all those flying coffins. One incident that was reported were guerrillas who submerged themselves with their Ak-47s in a swamp, waited for the coalition forces to pass them, then they emerged and fired. Very few weapon systems can fire just after being under water.
"Advanced" weapon systems are of limited value in todays wars. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld who just acknowledged a few weeks ago that things are really bad. To see how and more, point your browser to http://www.liveleak.com/.
Allowing another country to design military machinery is one thing, but software? Why did they even consider this in the first place, thats like a huge national security risk. I can see it now...
As the British fighters approach the American jets, they all suddenly lose control and crash into the ocean.
PWND.
We have to step back and ask ourselves another question, "Why go to war at all?"
I don't care if you're a liberal, conservative, libertarian, communist, fascist, moderate, or anything else. Regardless of your political beliefs, it has to be admitted that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had nothing to do with justice, freedom, or "weapons of mass destruction". They were merely done to exert increased Western geopolitical influence in central Asia. A major part of this is to counter the ever-growing power of China, but also because of the extensive energy supplies available in the region.
Thinking about this situation further, we have to realize that war is not a valid solution. China's 1.3 billion people dwarf that of the United States. While they may not have the hardware, their location and resources make them militarily superior in central Asia. As Iraq and Afghanistan have shown, the US doesn't have a damned chance.
Think further. What if all the money spent warring in Iraq and Afghanistan had been put towards research in the US, namely in the area of alternative energy sources. With so many billions upon billions of dollars in funding, it's doubtful that we'd ever need to consider oil for any purpose ever again. Our understanding of solar technology could have jumped years ahead with such funding. We could no doubt be making better use of tidal energy to power our homes and businesses.
So not only could the American dependence on Middle Eastern oil be avoided, but perhaps with virtually free renewable energy we could have seen manufacturing return to the US, thus reducing the American support that has allowed China to grow so rapidly. At that point, two of the major reasons for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been elminiated, the US is far better off than it is now, and it's actually still respected in many places.
The Joint Strike Fighter is the F-35. Much less stealth, much lower price, and likely just a little below the EuroFighter, in my opinion.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
The US government is really just too embarrassed to hand over the source code since it's all in Visual Basic 6.
A few pointers:
1) The F-117 has no air-to-air capability. It also has a rather small payload (basically 2 bombs), high maintenance costs due to early technology and is (generally believed, though I think it is still classified) to be a subsnoic jet, in other words, slower. Stealth isn't everything. Also, as it only fills the one role, it is less economical than an all-in-one type aircraft.
2) Uh... since when did anything other than a super-precision ground strike become unpopular politically? The U.S. has certainly used "dumb" bombs in many campaigns, including Afghanistan and Iraq, to good effect under certain conditions and on certain targets. JDAMs - much more economical than laser guided munitions - are also quote popular and while they aren't as accurate, "close" is often good enough, assuming they're fired under certain conditions, of course. Furthermore, this particular aircraft is capable of using laser-guided weapons.
3) You know, there are areas without civilian populations present where Close Air Support could still be a concern... like, say, the mountains of Afghanistan perhaps? Or in the middle of nowhere in the Iraqi desert? Or hundreds of other battlefields? Not every battle in the future will occur in third world cities, you know.
4) A helicopter with a "chain gun" has a limited operational range and exposes itself to a great deal of enemy fire. Helicopters' armament tends to be lighter than what an aircraft can provide, focusing more on armor-piercing weapons (Hellfire missiles), and smaller weapons more useful against vehicles and lighter targets (rockets, canon, etc.). A strike fighter, on the other hand, can deliver 2000 lb. bombs on a target when necessary, enablig it to knock out, say, a heavily reinforced building or bunker than a helicopter would stand no chance against.
I mean, if you don't like this plane, that's cool and all, but there is still a mission out there for it.
But then, according to Wikipedia, it's not like most of the countries involved have any significant amount of the development costs at stake. The UK is the biggest contributor, and it foots only 10% of the bill. It's not cool, but it's to be expected. Hopefully these countries will learn to not invest money into American hardware except when they are buying it with the expectation that it is full featured.
Let's also be a little realistic here. No country with military hardware as advanced as the United States, Japan, Russia or Israel is going to play entirely fair when selling to other countries. No country wants to risk its prize weapon systems falling into unsavory hands when it's fully functional. Personally, I would be surprised if the MiGs that Russia sells to China and other countries are as kick ass as some of the stuff their own air force uses.
I love the dept. line for this one. The UK is reading the "EULA" first, and that's why we're threatening to cancel a multi-billion dollar order.
After all, would you leave the ability to maintain your air force in the hands of another nation? (And seriously, even if the order goes ahead, would the US seriously expect the UK to honour some contractual agreement not to install working software in its military aircraft?)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Ah, well...
If you saw the premiere pilot episode of Battlestar Galactica - you know how dangerous a few 'software updates' can be...
Why fight your enemy if you can hack their fighter's source code,
and knock them out of the sky with a remote shutdown command?
I would expect military grade source code to be a very closely guarded, and heavily tested secret !
Sadly without this agreement the UK really should simply say no to any involvement, however I would suggest that the UK will still splash out anyway. The entire US/UK Special relationship is pretty much a myth anyway and more to the point it has been regarding foreign policy matters for a long time, placing even more dependence on the US in areas of defence is a bad idea.
There seems to be (in the UK at least) a memory lapse within political circles, that the US has in the past simply not stood with the UK.
The Lack of US support during the Falklands war, and outright opposition to the Suez crisis, should show that the UK cannot rely on US military power to support the UK's own operations and aims, and nor should it. The US will always look after itself, it will only take action when it feels its own perceived interests are involved or if there is sufficient domestic political pressure to do so, and the UK really should follow suit. Frankly that is a sensible position for any nation state to take. The UK governments current position of "follow the US's lead wherever it is demanded" is downright treasonous.
The UK needs to continue to maintain forces, equipment and any other capabilities independently or with allies as long as the UK is capable of maintaining the same, in the absence of their allies. It would be foolhardy to rely on the US (or France/Germany/Italy etc..) for equipment, parts, support, or armaments in the case of war, especially if any of those allies were opposed to the conflict.
The one thing I do feel that is surprising with this scenario is that the US will happily sell the aircraft to the UK. I would have assumed that any sensitive information about the aircraft would be available from the aircraft itself, which of course presents the question as to whether there are either surprises in the software that would give the US any advantage in the unlikely event that these aircraft were used against them. Although ignoring that (slight conspiracy theory) surely it should also raise questions about the quality of the software.
Anyway, I see no reason why the UK cannot simply continue to work on its own or with allies who full trust the UK, rather than be treated as an interloper or a poor cousin by the US.
On the surface, this seems like a stupid decision; but it's really impossible to say exactly what the motive is because... that might be secret too!
On the one hand, you might ask... "so what if Al Qaeda has the source code for the programs that run the fighter? It's not like running it on a PowerBook is going to make it fly mach 2 and shoot missiles". OTOH, a more sophisticated military, like the Chinese, might find a bug in it, develop an exploit that could be used in combat, and give it to North Korea or something.
Now, the Brittish wouldn't send this stuff to China... not as far as we know... so... maybe the US thinks there is a problem with the UK's ability to keep secrets.
OK, that's a bit far fetched. Maybe the contract under which this stuff was developed doesn't permit this. Ha-ha. Maybe it's tied up in legal limbo. That'd be more in keeping with the US that I know these days.
Maybe they're just afraid the Brits might find a bug, or come up with better code, or just laugh at all the "fucks" and "shits" they left in the comments. That wouldn't surprise me either.
The bottom line though, is our grandchildren find out the answer to "Why?", but we may never know. It might be top secret.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
perhaps it would reveal something like a logic bomb or some sort of remote cutoff/disabler, just in case and all that
which would be rather embarrasing seeing as the USA is supposed to trust the UK
When I buy a new computer, (Dell, HP/Compaq, etc.) The first think I do is format the drive...
Way back when, Polland had bought a complicated piece of hardware to run their electric grid from the U.S., the CIA had a killswitch secretly installed in it.
Polland was a friendly nation at the time, but you never know how the wind can change, so the switch was there, just in case.
You can't take the sky from me...
...are the only thing of value in aerospace code. Once you have seen the implementation (in Ada, most likely) you can re-implement it in a different language and along the way make it very difficult to prove that you ripped it off.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Before buying into the Eurofighter Typhoon, the British should consider a few things about it:
1. In order not to offend anyone, it contains parts from many different groups, including the Middle East and North Korea. All under GPL. (And you know the requirements of the GPL license.)
2. The French parts tend to eject at the first sign of trouble.
3. Everyone will have free access to it, on demand, but it will take 8 to 12 weeks to get to fly it.
And finally,
4. Of course, no weapons allowed. Or smoking. Or cheeseburgers.
The US government doesn't have the right to give them the source. The JSF is a product that is being developed for the military by Lockheed Martin and major partners BAE Systems and Northrop Grumman. Would you expect Dell to give the source to every program installed on it's computers to any customer on demand? Why would this plane be any different. There are many proprietary software programs being used that are very protected trade secrets. The UK is part of the EU and giving them those secrets would be tantamount to giving away literally billions of research and development dollars.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
This is not just about source code. In a system like that software, hardware and system integration are inseparable. You either give no information or have to give it all. These are the crown jewels of the platform. Revealing them also reveals any number of critical points for interested adversaries: thrust and manoeuvrability limits, reaction times, counter-measure schemes and logic, EMC-characteristics etc. all of which can be used to find weaknesses and design weapon systems to be more effective against it.
Also, since the UK is only conributing 10% of the development costs, its no wonder the US isnt keen sharing. Usually with mil-tech you only give a bad, incomplete user manual to the client so he can barely operate the thing and then wait for him to pay more for extra features that are already implemented by disabled in software or simply undocumented. You never ever allow the client to have exact specs, schematics or software which would allow him to reverse-engineer and develop his own extentions and applications to it.
Here in Finland we bought old C-model F18 Hornets. When the first upgrade cycle came, the US told us of these new fancy secure ground-to-air datalinks and avionics for combat close formation flying they wanted to sell us. We just told them we had developed our own by then, thankyouverymuch. But that was because the platform was getting old and most of the stuff in there was already open knowledge with multiple nations having purchased them years ago. Also with old-gen mil-aircraft there are a lot of avionics standards which were developed and adhered to during the cold-war to easy manufacturing, lower cost and allow inter-service operations. These JSFs will probably have special new-gen custom avionics to do with flight and weapon control, targeting, radar, stealth, communications and electronic warfare that the US definately wants to keep wrappers on.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
Trying to force someone to share sourece code is always almost impossible. Even if they share it, it will probably be a different version, some modules will not have the same version as others, and you can never build a good image.
Just look at how well MS has "shared" their source as mandated.
Only when the producer genuinely tries to make it work is it possible, and even then often a challenge. I can only imagine trying set up a full (top secret)developmnent environment and to build a complete set of images for multiple proprietary, top secret targets.
And if there is a flaw in your build, you dont hang a PC, all your jets crash and burn.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Put the code on SourceForge, make the plane run Linux and let millions of coders around the world fix your bugs. It's fast, cheap and works wonderfully well... most of your secrets are already kept by some type of Linux derivative.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
It has everything to do with protecting the US defense industry. Maintaining these new aircraft involves lots of money and no country but the US would want them to have a virtual monopoly. If I remember correctly Australia has similar concerns.
EOR (End-of-rant)
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
B-52's are pushing 50 years now, but they are nowhere near retirement. They have been comprehensively rebuilt, upgraded and overhauled over the years to continue service. And the big ugly fat fuckers are useful, when you absolutely positive positively have to pound something into dust they are nice to have around.
I wounder what the economics of rebuiding and upgrading the f-117s may be. My suspicion is that it would reduce the profits of the denfense contractors and so an idea like that would be DOA.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I hate to rain on your parade, but the US did provide loads of support to Britain during the falklands. Though, I suppose you could argue this was at a time when we "free nations" had to "stick together" to oppose the "red menace". I've read else where that other supplies were provided to UK forces for the conflict from the US, in addition to what wikipedia mentions, though the source escapes me at the moment (probably one of Jim Dunigan's books).
Ungh
about being American. It seems like every day my government does something retarded, making us look worse and worse. Thank God the Dem's won in November, It's going to be a long road back to respectability. It's getting harder and harder to remember when the rest of the world used to look up to the U.S.(or at least not have contempt for us).
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
In the past (with the F16, F18 and others) countries such as Britain (and Australia I understand) not only had access to the source, but also substituted their own code for parts of the weapons systems and avionics software. This was necessary to meet their own requirements, which *are* different from those of the US Air Force and Navy, those countries have smaller forces, facing different threats in differing environments, need to integrate with different weapons and fire-control infrastructure and operate to diffing doctrines.
This is the first time that the US has imposed onerous restrictions like this:
- no you can't see it,
- no you can't substitute your own
- yes we know you're paying towards the development, but !@#$ off
"... and then all our vipers suddenly when dead, it was like someone threw a switch..."
... contingency plans. Especially the current crop of loonies.
I don't blame the brits at all. I certainly wouldn't trust the US military not to make
Single battles have gone over 46,000 or 51,000 even... small scuffs can raise several dozen or even a couple hundred. 3,000 is quite a low number for a few months of occupying a country.
I don't think it's the casualty rate that is damaging the current US administration. What is really doing it harm is the fact that after three years Iraq has progressed from the state of anarchy that it was in during the days after the fall of Saddams régime to a strange form of low intensity civil war. You can actually win a war and lose the 'peace' (if you can manage to call the current situation in Iraq that without blushing) and the US is well on it's way to acieving that in Iraq.
Forgive me for answering anonymously but features are turned "off" in the code. It would be too difficult to modify the source and remove the lines that aren't needed. With that said, several features would become "known" to people outside of a predefined need-to-know group. Secrets are not kept secrets if people not needing the information have knowledge of it. Most of the US pilots who fly fighter aircraft are unaware of some of the technologies that the weapon system they are flying has to offer. Of course, they would be told very quickly if they have the need-to-know. It is not a question of trusting the British. By all means, they are our closest ally. It is a question of keeping the knowledge of those technologies limited to a small predefined group of software engineers and scientists.
Aside from any code with the purpose of fascilitating a "shutdown" of the plane, the code for the radar data processing is what the US is most concerned to keep a well guarded secret. Also, 90% of the code for the F22 is written in Ada. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/air craft/f-22-avionics.htm
US fsked us before, US fsked us again. Big fsking surprise.
Everyone needs to stop comparing weapons. I believe it's all in the pilot. If you have a good pilot in a MiG, I wouldn't be surprised if he could take either of these next generation fighters. Both of these fighters are great and they almost fly themselves but like I said, it's all about the pilot.
Thought UK was paying for most it while u.s. was designing it and paying a much smaller part of the bill. The problem is you can't buy these things in dollars because dollars have no asset value. Only the silver backed Pound has enough value to pay for huge projects like this.
"One moment, please hold for the Prime Minister"
(pause)
"Hello, Mr. Stallman? I understand you have some experience applying political pressure to closed-source vendors, I wonder if..."
The army is nothing, but a tool for the public.
The army is just doing the will of the US people. It is truly important that the people knows the facts so they can change and advice their workers (the army) in their task to help the peoples interests.
"Prime Minister Blair" is very much an Americanism, I'm fairly certain it's not a title that you would use as a prefix. Being British I'd call him Mr Blair if I was talking to him (well, I can think of a couple of other things to call him as well, but they would probably get me arrested saying them to his face). I think when he's announced it's something like "The Right Honourable Mr Tony Blair, The Prime Minister".
That's all fine, dandy and understandable. But for countries taking place in this project, wouldn't you think they'd be scared about the features that *are* enabled in the code version they get, such as EjectPilotOnSignOfUSTrouble(), or ChangeMissileTargetFromOvalOfficeDesk().
You may think this is funny, but not in the least by your current president I think the world has turned into an uglier place over the past 6 years. Who's not to say an even more lunatic guy gets elected/bribed/bought/wiggled into the White House and he happens to have a feature to turn our JSF's against us by the flip of a switch??
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
The US probably won't release it because the blue nackground colour & white bunches of hex numbers are so embarrassing.
They should send sr71.rb instead. They've got dozens of those Habus in museums. A tank of fuel, literally a couple of hours, and they're delivered. Just add a handful of light missiles to each (shells are too slow) and you're away!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Informative-- and the nation's called Poland, FFS.
"I seem to have mastered a certain amount of control over physical reality."
This srceen is asking me for a registration key. Dubya gee aye, it calls itself. Weapon's Geniunely As... oh, never mind. Does anyone know how to pray?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You realize that you're basically confirming what he's saying, that stealth sucks because ancient technology can detect it. You may be arguing the details of how, but the what is certainly in agreement.
The US and UK are so tightly bound in military and intelligence matters, you really should not believe reports like this. This kind of news is "for public release." Grain of salt.
Since it is of such small value, there is no hardship in doing so, is there?
a right tool for the job of "police work and occupying an angry populace"
Let us suppose for a moment it was reversed and the Iraqi army had invaded the US. You might have really hated Bush, you might have gone to protests against him, but I can't quite imagine US citizens welcoming in an invading force.
My best guess would be that the US hoped to get what they had in Iraq - puppet government to control their people, given the tools and blind-eye to do so by the US (in return for smoothly flowing oil).
The entire argument that the intention was merely to bring democracy is obvious jive. Take for example the recent elections in Palestine (which were considered to be free and fair) - the democratically elected government there was fair less corrupt than the PLO, but as the democratically elected view of the country moved away from desired US policy funded was halted (EU did the same). This was funding for hospitals etc and the lack of is is accepted as causing deaths of civilians.
You can only draw the conclusion that the stopping of funding was to punish the country for electing the 'wrong' democracy. While this punishment for voting the wrong way continues, I cannot see how any election result produced can be considered democratic.
What?! The US gov't do something underhanded and dastardly? Naaaw, never (as long as you don't ask the torture victims of Gitmo or Abu Ghraib or any of the CIA's other secret prisons).
It seems the "special relationship" is only "special" as long as Britain remains on its knees.
Kirk offers to surrender himself and beam over, if Khan will let the Enterprise and its crew go. Khan accepts if Kirk also turns over all information the Enterprise has on Project Genesis....
a th_of_Khan
Kirk stalls, claiming difficulty in retrieving the data. This allows Kirk and Spock precious moments to retrieve the Reliant's security access prefix code from the Enterprise's computers. The transmitted code lowers the Reliant's shields, allowing the Enterprise to use its last bit of phaser power to damage the Reliant enough to force its retreat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_II:_The_Wr
Ahaha. I hate to break it to you, but there are plenty of liberal democrats like me who don't go in for the touchy feelies. And there are plenty of middle of the road people I know, people who don't even vote who more or less feel the same way.
If WWIII must eventually be fought with the fundementalists of the world (compromise with their fucked up failed civilization being a non-starter), fight it now, from afar, kill everything they know and everyone that stands with them. Mercilessly. After 99.9% of them are dead, should they find a Chief Joseph, we can talk about accepting their unconditional surrender, turning their once homelands into parks and nature preserves, in a century, if all goes well casinos.
Hardly political suicide. Divisive. But it wouldn't even topple a President. A mushroom cloud over Mecca would make a re-election campaign I could really get behind. If they want a crusade, I say give them their end of days. Commit their failed values and way of life to the dustbin of history. Let the academics who uncover the radioactive ruins of what once passed for their civilization to meditate on what it might have been as ours do now at Carthage. Our foes demand Imperial power. I'm not a fan of an Imperial America. But if that's the price of peace, I'm willing to pay it in their blood and fast neutrons. And I'm an educated liberal who disagrees with conservatives on nearly every policy point. How many others from all walks of life do you suspect find common ground in the extermination of islamist, all those who support and shelter them?
Oh the secret word? http://images.slashdot.org/hc/94/bea556461dc6.jpg Commando
The Chinese bought Sukhois from Russia but some features were locked down. They simply got a bunch of hackers and gave them a plane to play with. In no time they had all the codes at hand.
No, there is not "a lot of GPL" in military systems, as most "military systems" are built by contractors and agencies with large budgets and lots of contracts with Sun, IBM and others, meaning that they don't need to copy code from GCC, GNOME, tar or anything like that, because they already have enough manpower to build it or already have contracts giving them access to better products. It's not about the quality of GPL code, but the fact that all GPL'ed products are nothing but trivial (yet time-consuming) software projects.
If you really think that the military needs to copy the source code from things like GCC and GZIP, making their whole source base GPL (enclosed GPL, but still GPL) because of that, it's pretty obvious that you completely forgot that the entire history of Unix and most of computing has passed in the hands and pocket of the military research system. They don't need to copy recent GPL'ed clones of Unix and its utilities, as they financed and licensed it since the beginning.
The military doesn't need GPL'ed code for anything at all.
way to go, America.
This is the thanks the UK get for trusting in George 'Imbecile' Bush. You'd think that whilst campaigning in Iraq we'd be seen as people you can be trusted with source code, but I remember the series of posts on here when we first asked for the source. UK has a long history of getting bumfucked in this way by US. I'm sure this and other things will slowly bring us to the end of the special relationship, and the beginning of a more fereral Europe.No doubt at the speed of re-educating europhobes - Good
These sort of collaborations need serious planning, and in the UK such projects are handled through the MoD DPA (Defense Procurement Agency). The model they work with is called IPT (Integrated Project Team) who handle such projects, and there are (AFAIK) quite a few that collaborate with the US on various things (the simplest example is the adoption of the DODAF framework into what they call MODAF).
Now, I have just one, very simple question:
Why the hell wasn't this requirement flagged up and secured at the very beginning of the project? The IPT leader for JSF should have his nuts removed for dropping such a major stitch, but I guess the real culprit has already silently wandered off in the 2 year rotation that people enjoy there.
Result: millions of UK Pounds of tax money at risk, and they're in no position to negotiate either - the US knows they've got their backs against the wall as there is no Plan B (despite what the politicians want - it takes years to get something like this off the ground).
The ability of people to walk off after 2 years without ever being held to account for cockups during their reign (however much later they emerge) is IMHO the single biggest risk to everything the MoD does, and it needs to be fixed. But I guess that would be rather painful politically. Better waste some more tax payer money because that's free anyway, or that is at least what Tony Blair and cronies seem to think..
From what I have read, the package being given by the US to the F-35 partners (Australia, UK etc) is going to have avionics and equipment that is not as good as that which the US military will be using on its own F-35s. The US probobly doesnt want the partners to turn around and restore this missing functionality (either by modifying the existing avionics hardware and software or by replacing it outright).
Also, the US is probobly worried that the partners (and those contractors the partners choose to work with) may not have as strict rules when it comes to protecting the secrets of the F-35 from "the bad guys".
It also locks you in to buy only the missiles that the US wants you to buy (i.e. theirs).
You don't need a lab to make mud.
The US never intended to share the fighter, the original commitment from the UK was to make it easier to keep the US side funded (we need to keep this going because we owe the brits $120B worth of planes...). Once we figured out our funding was safe, we could start throwing obstacles into the purchase. The source code argument is cool because it polarizes the geeks against the purchase (OMFG the US IS TEH SUCK FREE SOURCE CODE OMFG!!!111 ELEVENTYTWO).
The brits are not stupid, they won't want a black box into a war plane if they don't know what it does, so they say no thanks. We say oh well, national security, etc., we just can't sell it to you.
Scratch one country off the list of "allies" that were to purchase it. The other partner countries will look at that and follow suit, so the JSF will end up a US-only platform.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
The UK wants the source code because it wants to be able improve it and get it working to its own standards, as well as wanting proof that the Americans haven't jammed it full with backdoors. This isn't about Iraq, its not about the US military being useless in a heart & mind war, its about the US military's need to hold onto secrets. Considering how often the pentagon has shafted the UK military in the past concerning inteligence, and R&D. Can you blame the UK for wanting to review the code?
I swear we could have a news article on the BPI giving away music for free and demanding an abolishment of copyright and I'm sure the entire comment list would be about the RIAA.
Does the DoD still use Ada? Only for legacy systems? Just curious.
The actual military objectives of the NATO campaign had to be abandoned after a few weeks, since NATO's well-planned air strikes kept missing their targets and obliterating decoy after decoy. The total amount of damage among the enemy on the ground in three months of NATOs bombing campaing was 14 tanks, 18 APCs and 20 artillery pieces.
That's less than one piece of military equipment per day of the campaign. Air superiority looks different.
Targeting defenseless civilians and civilian infrastructure, otoh, is something the US forces managed to do quite well. They bombed TV stations, passenger trains, embassies, refuge columns, villages, markets, bridges, etc. killing thousands of civilians in the process.
Superiority my ass. You're the same kind of genocidal scum as Milosevic's brand of human waste in uniform.
You have to remember, The UK are only Americas "allies" and "friends" when we are doing what America want, Like, Oh i don't know, Helping America out in an illegal war.
God Be Gone
Large parts of the code in question (flight control code for the STOVL variant - which is what the Royal Navy and RAF will be getting as their JSF will be a Harrier replacement) were originally written by various DERA sites based around RAF Boscombe Down and the RAE in Farnborough. Google for VAACS and "Unified Flight Control".
So effectively, the situation is one where the US won't let the UK have a modified variant of the original UK code.
Everyone knows we have to steal the Firefox.
There is a problem with the JSF source code: it is written in cyrillic! The JSF is based on the soviet Yakovlev Yak-141 supersonic VTOL fighter jet from 1988.
Otherwise, the Eurofighter Typhoon will not fly from carriers. In fact, the french split from the project and created their own more beautiful version, called the Dassault Rafale M for this very reason. The Eurofighter has too weak landing gears and airframe to fly from carriers, due to initial design decisions on cost saving.
I think future british carriers would be too small for the Rafale. It is either JSF (without source code) or a future Harrier upgrade for them.
Crummy RADAR is like a homing beacon.
Good RADAR sends out a directional beam that rapidly hops frequency in unpredictable ways.
in the US there are a lot of hunting and fishing brigate around. When you're out hunting with a gun and friends ,if you can't tell what is it YOU DON'T SHOOT! It's kind of obvious 'cos it could be uncle bob in them bushes...
Yet, when you give a jar-head a gun and put em in uniform, they forget this and it becomes "If you don't know what it is, shoot it."
Maybe because if it wasn't an enemy before, it is now...
So, let me get this right: The US is gonna turn down 120 Billion dollars because they don't want to show their code, to their only remaining supporter?
That's dummer than Dumbya on a bad day. Scratch that, that's the dumbest shit ever.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Ask for a bare-metal discount. It's like buying a PC without Windows and writing your own OS.
Surely the UK can write radar software? You could then refuse to give it to the USA.
The aircraft is still a nice piece of hardware.
FYI, NSA published SELinux, period.
They made the original stuff that was improved later.
It was quite an event too, and they're still hosting the mailing list IIRC.
GPG 0x1B479C78
This really underscores the problems with one government supporting another. It makes the recipient beholden to the donator. It can work reasonably well when the nations in question are peers (or a reasonable proximity thereof), like American financial support and commonwealth material support of Britain during WW2. But when the nations have a major power inbalance between them? The results are usually destructive. American and Soviet influence over small nations during the cold war typify this.
It's one thing to help the people of another nation, by financing the construction of hospitals and schools and that kind of thing. But giving money to the government just buys influence over that government. It's great the Hamas can't be as belligerent and stupid as they would like ... but without the opportunity to make their own mistakes and get beaten down for them, wont Palestinians just keep blaming America for their troubles? It's kind of scary that the majority of the Palestinian government's employees were being bankrolled by America and the EU in the first place. That is NOT a reasonable way to run a nation.
If America and the EU want to help, they should do what America did in the past to spread democracy -- set up a trade structure where the people of the recipient nation get tons and tons of cheap American-made crap. It's hard to hate the people that manufactured your espresso machine or underwear. Voting only takes place two or three times a decade. Church/Synagogue/Mosque is once a week. Coffee is two or three times a DAY. MP3 players can offer DOZENS of hours of entertainment a week. A microwave can easily save you an hour of labour each day. A comfortable pair of shoes can make you feel better with every single footstep for an entire year or more -- no political movement in history can offer that kind of comfort. Would you rather spend four hours playing a videogame, or four hours getting brainwashed to hate people that you've never met? There's a reason that consumeristic nations don't have many civil wars, genocidal militias, or tribal warlords ...
Consumerism has its own negative consequences, but it's done more for world peace than any other factor in all of history. Why should I die in a pointless war of conquest, when there are so many things that I don't own yet? I'll kill defend my nation -- after all, that's where all my stuff is. I'll try to keep our army here; sending them out to wage war costs money that I'd rather spend on videogames. Etc.
The when Hamas officials churn out their desire for the obliteration of the Israeli state - even I with my lefty love of the underdog, feel that that's unacceptable.
My point is that something similar is happening in Iraq. The Iraqi people don't want a foreign force occupying their country.
Most of them aren't going to kill US/UK/etc soldiers, but they don't want them there. Given a free choice, they want them gone now and to take out the puppet/courrupt government they installed.
The current government will not survive if it is left as it is - hence while the people want the US gone, the government need to keep them and are frantically trying to build a security service for when the US goes.
Why would they need a security service? Because they're going to be damn unpopular with the people - and their just going to have to get 'quelling'.
Sooo Iraqi people now have a choice, they can keep current government and US funding - or elect whoever they choose and get their funding cut. If the funding goes, we end up with a civilized educated country, with a fucked infrastructure descending into a civil war.
Harsh truth is, that for Iraq to survive as a single country, the people need to be oppressed by their government - doesn't matter if it's Saddam or current government. If you want Iraq to survive as a single country, then a shit-load of innocent people are going to die..
If you believe in democracy - then you can't elect the wrong one. People vote and get the government and representation they want.
You might then feel compelled to kill the lot of them for making that decision, but that was their democracy. If they'd been given their second choice - then things might work out better, but that isn't democracy.
A totalitarian state isn't necessarily bad. Tito's Yugoslavia really wasn't a bad place - but as soon as he died and democracy crept in, the whole place just fell apart.
Australia is intending to replace its aging F-111 fleet with JSF. However there's been a significant amount of resistance to the idea, since the JSF is not able to fill in the same roles that the F-111 currently performs in the Australian Air Force. 'Upgrading' to JSF theoretically will reduce the crippling maintenance costs associated with the F-111, but at the expense of a lot of our strategic strike capabilities.
I wonder whether the US not wanting to play nicely with JSF source code might have further implications on the debate.
Nowadays, half of the cost of developing new aircraft is the software. You'd think the super-advanced F-22 would have required billions of dollars at materials development and design, but no, over half the cost was software alone. So with how much the US has spent on the software, you can see why giving it away for free would bug them.
We're planning on renewing our air-force by buying some new figther-planes, and it looks as if Eurofigther, SAS-Gripen and the JSF are the most likely candidates.
The first suggestion from the US was that we'd not even be allowed to *see* the sourcecode for the JSF under NDA. I think that may have gotten resolved, but being allowed to *change* anything is out of the question.
It's ridicolous. Why would any sovereign nation accept buying military material where they're *dependant* on a foreign power for even trivial bugfixes ?
The magnetrons in microwave ovens radiate at 2.45 GHz. They won't be of much (if any) help against GPS. However they still could serve as decent baits for HARM missiles; for their electronics they may look quite similar to continuous-wave radars. A $100 microwave oven for a $250,000 (or whatever) missile, now that I call a fair trade.
A fan with metal (or tinfoil-wrapped) blades then can be used as an optional beam modulator if the missiles would start ignoring unmodulated sources. The thing then can look substantially similar, EM-wise, to a missile guidance radar.
A democracy that elects the Nazi party is rotten and not to be befriended.
Hammas is an organization bent on destruction and jihadism, it has nothing positive to offer to try to fix the general situation, so frankly I don't see why the West should welcome them as bearers of the true democracy in the Middle East.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Hamas has said multiple occasions, in no uncertain terms, that they want the destruction of Israel.
If they are so willing to neogtiate peace, what the heck are they waiting for to recognize the right of Israel to exist? That is a step that would cost them nothing (except the support of fanatics) and would clearly state peaceful intent.
For goodness sakes, thses people act like if Ghandi, Mandela and Luther King have never existed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
War is not fought for its own sake. It is not a football game.
War is fought in order to achieve political objectives.
After the Vietnam war has ended all of North Vietnam objectives have been achieved and non of the US's had.
Now tell me, who won that war again?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Look it up in a map buddy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I hope you enjoy doing it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Your source of valuable information are drunk Germans.
Way to go buddy, waaay to go.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I can only really refer you to my earlier post. The Hamas government were not in any sense about to launch an effort to wipe Israel off the map. Look at the disparity of the situation and tell me the idea is not absurd. Furthermore, they had swept to victory on a platform of ending corruption and the vast majority of the palestinian people were in favour of a two-state solution and Israel's continued existence. Both the Hamas government and the palestinian people knew that the election was not a statement of hostility towards Israel.
Leaving aside the reality of the situation, Hamas itself has been making negotiation noises for years now. One of their founders, Abdul Aziz al-Rantissi, said back in 2002 that "we can accept a truce with them and we can live side by side and refer the issue to coming generations." Unfortunately he was later assasinated by the Israelis. Hamas had also declared a cease-fire and a truce at the time of the elections.
I don't have time or inclination to dig out interviews from the time, though the BBC gives a few opinions hree.
Like it or not, the government that the palestinian people chose was not a threat to Israel at that time, and certainly not a threat to the US or its people. Nevertheless, the US and Israel saw fit to destabalise that government for political reasons. And the clear message was sent to the palestinian people that democracy was allowed to them only subject to US approval.
If a government is freely elected by its people, and with such an overwhelming majority as Hamas was given, then that government represents the people and it is that government that must be negotiated with if you wish to negotiate with that people.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I'm sorry. I almost forgot to answer this:
There are over a million palestinians living in refugee camps. We now have a generation that has known nothing but being a refugee. The answer to what are they waiting for before accepting peace, for a lot of palestinians, is for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories that it invaded in 1967 and give back their homes. The invasion was condemned as illegal and remains so, but with the continuous backing of the US government, Israal has never relinquished control of the land it seized.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Why not just buy the Gripen from the Swedes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gripen
Australia commits to F-35 strike fighter.
Draw your own conclusions... (Hint: What a bunch of fucking morons.)
you had me at #!