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Open Source Software In the Military

Posted by kdawson on from the keep-it-stupid-stupid dept.

JohnMoD writes With the advent of forge.mil, etc. the military seems to be getting on board with free and open source software. A working group meeting is going to be held at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, August 12-13, 2009. There's a pretty good lineup of speakers including a Marine from the Iraq-Marine Expeditionary Forces, who was on the ground and saw the agility open source gave to him and his soldiers. A number of OSS projects are going to be meeting there: Delta 3D, OpenCPI, FalconView, OSSIM, Red Hat, etc. Looks like there will be some good discussions."

6 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Glad To See It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    If OSS is good enough for consumers, businesses, and even governments, there's no reason why the military and their contractors can't use it.

    I'm glad Open Source Software is being used to support the brave men and women serving our country and defending our freedom.

    God Bless America.

    1. Re:Glad To See It by Nathrael · · Score: 1, Troll

      It is sad to see that being supportive of one's country is now regarded as troll-ish on Slashdot.

      --
      A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
    2. Re:Glad To See It by kanweg · · Score: 0, Troll

      In my opinion it should be. It means being negative about the rest. I don't see how that helps to all get along.

      Bert
      Who was never brainwashed at school to pledge allegiance to a plot of territory (a ritual invented by a guy from a flag factory to sell more flags)

  2. Killing code? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's good to know when your code is contributing in killing others!

    1. Re:Killing code? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      So much trolling going on in here.

  3. The only important thing to say by ChameleonDave · · Score: 0, Troll

    I have some karma to burn, so I'll say it.

    Military use of Free software is in violation of the spirit of the movement. Yes, the letter of the GNU licences doesn't stop you doing immoral things with code, but it is clear that if I took the time to contribute a nice little program to the human race, it wasn't so that some bastard could come along and in use it to facilitate the blowing apart of other human beings. The fatigue-wearing bullies of some regime halfway across the world, be it in Korea, India, the US, Honduras or anywhere else, are not welcome to the fruits of my labour.

    Any discussion of this matter which does not consist either of plans to stop this happening, or sighing wishes that things could be different, is completely missing the point, and a sign of a lack of civilisation.