Future Military Systems

[obi]

For a look at how using Windows worked the last time they tried it on an operational platform...............

http://www.info-sec.com/OSsec/OSsec_080498g_j.shtml

[Galdron]

They automatically use Microsoft? Why? More than likely it was bid out, and Microsoft undercut they competition. I personally would not want to wear a system created by the lowest bidder. I would think that Mac's G4 with a special version of Mac O.S. would be far superior in performance and perhaps even security. But thats just my opinion.

P:

[stflook]

The military using Microsoft products? GOD HELP US!!!

[Matty_Cross]

I would believe that the fact that the government would use any companies products, especially Microsofts extremely disturbing.

I seriously believe that they would be much better off developing their own OS to use. Sure, it may cost more, but ultimately the benifits would make it more than worthwhile. If there is a problem with the units, then they could fix it themselves, not have to wait months for a patch to be release by a third party developer.

If they do use a Windows 2K for it, there is gonna be lots of shyte hitting the proverbial fan.

Whats next, using IIS to provide updates on the soldiers status?

[TotalChaos(D~Sq]

My opinion the reason is the simplicity of windows and most people have some knowledge of how to use it. We (US) will get it for the trade on the Anti-Trust case

[Matty_Cross]

TotalChaos(D~Sq has made a very valid point...

But it raises another, possibly even greater concern...

are the united states prepared to trade of it's security for such a small price...

none can deny that microsoft have attempted (and succeeded in part to make a monopoly. The punishment for them could be great, or if the US decides

Every other week, you hear about another flaw in one of microsoft's products.. whether it be IIS (It Isn't Secure) or even its quite good office suites...

If the US is prepared to trade off its security for cheap software, send them my way... I can't code for crap, but at least my code doesn't allow you to take over anything running on the system...

[KublaiKhan]

Y'know, it's obvious that the different areas of the government don't work together.....

The NSA spent a lot of time developing a very secure distro of Linux (I believe I saw the article on slashdot), and the Army goes and shells out loads of cash for a M$ product.

Besides--you can make X-Window, esp. the Sawfish window manager, look and feel just like M$ Windows. It's not as if the common grunt is going to be poking around in the underlying code, y'know....

Besides which, Linux is inheirently more secure than Windows.

Certainly, "Government Intelligence" *is* an oxymoron.

[Matty_Cross]

Government Intelligence is, I would have to say, most certainly an oxymoron KublaiKhan....

But in all fairness, while we may say that the government is stupid, and that the only reason the microsoft anti-trust cases haven't been resolved is that the government is holding out for a really sweet deal from microsoft (well, at least I say that, coz I know that I would do that if I was them) there was without a doubt, a lot of consideration into the choice of OS to use for this operation or project or whateva....

I'm Australian, so I may not have as much info regarding US Government, but I do believe that they do not needlessly endanger the lives of those under their care, especially just for a miniscule saving of money.....

But any further than that and we just get into government policy, which is not what this thread is about, so.. I'm off...

[8*B@LL]

Originally posted by Matty Cross
I seriously believe that they would be much better off developing their own OS to use. Sure, it may cost more, but ultimately the benifits would make it more than worthwhile. If there is a problem with the units, then they could fix it themselves, not have to wait months for a patch to be release by a third party developer.

you clearly dont have alot of experiance with the US gov. if they decided to make their own os, not only would it take like 20 years, it would be total crap in the end. anything the government tries to do on its own is done in the cheapest possible way, with not enough man power, and practly no experiance.

hell, they cant even get the freakin pentigon comp systems secure, and you want them to start making an OS from scratch? are you crazy?

[ZeroOne]

Originally posted by 8*B@LL
hell, they cant even get the freakin pentigon comp systems secure, and you want them to start making an OS from scratch? are you crazy?

good point...
I'm also definitely against using Windows as the OS for Land Warriors, but the idea of using Linux was good, I'd also thought it myself. It's ready, but it's rather easy to customize the way they ever want to. I'm sure they can afford some coins on software development if they can afford the hardware for what, 10.000 soldiers??
And how are they ever going to use Windows without a mouse in their bullet-proof vest? With a pen? Yeah, sure... Linux is much more stable and secure and can be used in command line as well as speech recognizing or what ever are they willing to use as the input method... And, like said many times in this topic already, Windows is an expensive option.

-ZeroOne

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