11.23.09
Windows at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NASA
Summary: The impact of aeronautics in the United States becoming dependent on outdated proprietary software from Microsoft
WE PREVIOUSLY wrote about the United States FAA, which stands for Federal Aviation Administration [1, 2, 3]. Due to secrecy, outsiders were unable to know what platform was for blame for the many prolonged downtimes that the FAA was suffering, leaving passengers stranded and putting aircrafts at risk. A couple of days ago Groklaw shared the following finding and added: “This is the system that just failed, is it not? If you compare with the news report (“Flight plans are collected by the FAA for traffic nationwide at two centers — one in the Salt Lake City area and the other in the Atlanta area, Bergen said. She did not know which center was affected Thursday.”), it seems to be. They chose Windows as “an open platform”??! See why definitions matter?“
Just a couple of hours ago we showed how Microsoft was ruining the word "open", which it also used to describe a NASA platform that excluded "open source" platforms. Microsoft essentially used “open” against “open source”, which is a devious thing to be doing. But Microsoft went even further last month when it snatched NASA data that US taxpayers had been paying for. What on Earth is happening at NASA (pun was not originally intended)?
Now they strike another deal (this link is to the press release) and The Register calls it “child labor”. Here is what it’s about:
A new website launched by both NASA and Microsoft aims to enlist the help of both professional astronomers and keen members of the general public to help map Mars and make sense of the data coming back.
The BBC offers superficial coverage for people who fear technology and looking at the Web site, it says: “This site was created under a Memorandum of Understanding between NASA/JPL-Caltech and Microsoft.”
MoU, eh? We know those from internal documents and we always see the effects.
For NASA to be associated with a convicted monopolist that bribes and corrupts is just wrong, but the mainstream media has no problem with that. Government agencies must stop procuring based on ‘religious’ inclinations. █
“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
–Albert Einstein
