A significant portion of the US military warships run on a Windows based operating system as well.

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,13987,00.html

I believe the goal is to have them all converted at some point in a program called "Smart Ship" (GOOGLE!)

I would assume that the same company provides the systems for both the US and British Navy since allies often share technology.

What worries me isn't so much the choice of operating system but rather the monolithic nature of it. What I mean is, the two largest military powers in the world, who also happen to be our allies, are running the same systems. A single flaw could them all out. A real possibility since they are all connected via a world wide WAN. The same applies regardless of which OS you choose.

Its also worth noting that NT has its security certification (I forget what that is called) and Linux does not. I believe some progress is being made towards Linux getting the same certification.

Given the above, Windows was really the only available choice for an "off the shelf" solution.

Also keep in mind that this software project was started in the mid to late 90s. Linux wasn't even on the radar then, not even super-secret military satellite radar ;)

Regards,

John Lange

On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 09:19, ed orphan wrote:

According to today's BBC ( June 10, 2004 ), the new Type 45 "stealth" destroyers, which are to "provide the future backbone of the Royal Navy" are to be "controlled by state-of-the-art computers using a Windows NT operating system." BAE Systems is to have the first one launched in September 2007. A price of $ 3.6 billion is stated, but its not made clear if that's for all 26 of them, or just one. I suspect its for just one. Either way, it's good money pissed away. Windows NT ! These things will be a menace to everyone, including their own crews.

---

Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable