Tux Enlisted for U.S. Defense Program

An anonymous reader writes "Linux is a key part of the Army's massive $200B FCS (Future Computing System) initiative, it seems. RTOS vendor LynuxWorks was chosen to provide the OS for 18 weapons platforms under development, because its LynxOS-178 real-time OS can run Linux binaries -- including the "common operating environment" that Boeing is developing for FCS."

Re:is linux guilty of murder now?

[markild]

It will be. Then in comes SCO and takes the credit

Yay!

[Neopoleon]

Nothing says "feel-good bluegrass tech movement" like becoming part of the military industrial complex.

Drafted? Guess he's going in before you..

[infonography]

Uniform of the Day is now a Tuxedo.

Now I have a mental image

[Timesprout]

of a penguin with a cigarette hanging out of the side of its mouth, cradling an assault rifle and wearing a helmet with 'Born to kill' written on it.

Re:Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean "grassroots", genius, not "bluegrass". Put the banjo down.

Beating a dead horse

[Scoria]

Colonel Panic: Not just a reaction to incorrect artillery coordinates anymore!

Re:Beating a dead horse

[Scoria]

Hey, moderators, the parent is not a troll. Stop using the new Red Hat "Curveball" theme; it's distorting your intelligence. :-(

Re:Beating a dead horse

[stratjakt]

He's outranked by General Protection Fault.

Re:Don't expect compliance with the GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Launching a missle at someone might be construed as distributing the binary.

Re:ARPA-NET

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what Al told me...

Re:Peace, Love, Linux

[REBloomfield]

Can't win with you guys can you?

If they'd put Windows on it, you've have bitched and jumped up and down.

They put Linux on it, and you're still wining.

Perhaps the world doesn't actually give a stuff of the opinions of a load of geeks in their bedrooms?

Re:is linux guilty of murder now?

[pklong]

Hmmm Tux joins the military.

All the hippy hacker types will be fuming. They might even have to get their hair cur ;)

Re: thought I was being funny

[lheal]

I hate it when I come up with a sure-fire, can't miss post and blow it with a typo or incorrect usage that ruins the whole thing.

Like the time I posted about a girl who drank so much she blew chunks, but I put "drunks" instead of "chunks", which changed the meaning slightly.

Tux's Wardrobe

[Le Marteau]

Thank goodness Slashdot doesn't have an icon for Liunx in the military. Knowing Taco, it would probably be Tux wearing an adorable little camoflage outfit, in the same vein as the Tux wearing a suit icon.

Adorable.

Taco, about that Tux in a suit icon as a symbol for Linux in the business realm, Tux himself would not be wearing the suit. He's already got a tuxedo, for chrissakes. It would be the suits who were USING Linux. Linux/Tux himself would not be the one changing himself to suit the situation, it would be the suits.

Re:Hardly suprising...

[GigsVT]

Well, linux implements division by zero. So there.

Re:Now I have a mental image

[marsu_k]

No cigarette or a helmet, but does this [zarb.org] come close?

Re:Lots of open source in FCS...

[iamdrscience]

Also, there's a bunch of COUGAAR support software written in Ruby, i.e., ACME.

You read it here first: Ruby is the new Ada.

So let's get this straight........

[mormop]

You fit a missile with a Linux kernel. Does this mean that every time you distribute the software by nuking someone you have to drop a copy of the source code in the crater afterwards :)?

Re:is linux guilty of murder now?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Tuxinator; he'll never stop EVER, until you are dead!

Or his time_t overflows, whichever comes soonest.

Re:Yay, no BSOD

[segal_loves_pandas]

Hmm, in a way I have to agree with that as well. Now that I think about it, I think it doesnt matter what OS that runs your weapons, war will never leave any winners, both sides will lose Someones been playing a lot of tic-tac-toe!

Switch to Linux

[djinn2020]

Linux Apple switch parody

http://www.nata2.info/humor/flash/switchlinux3.swf [nata2.info]

Linux is so versatile, it's amazing we didn't switch to it before to run our armies of robots :)