In these troubled times, Linux and Open Source are making their way into the arsenal of the 21st-century soldier. Applications such as battlefield radios, missile launch-control computers, Navy tactical data systems, and Air Force logistics software are being built and deployed with Linux at their core.

Aerospace and defense have traditionally been strong markets and design domains for embedded systems platforms. In the 1960s, the Pentagon and NATO designed computers into their evolving defense systems. From the 1980s on, advanced weapons systems have boasted an array of embedded processors. Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and their sub-contractors build embedded controllers and complex software into the noses and tailfins of smart weapons, satellites, radars, navigation and targeting systems, and into every sort of military vehicle on land, in the air, or at sea.

Why was Tux a choice draftee? Since the mid-90s, the DoD’s COTS Initiative has mandated standards-based, off-the-shelf procurement. Defense contractors were forced to move from one-of-a-kind custom hardware and proprietary software to readily available systems based on VME and PCs running applications built for open, commercial Unix / POSIX OS platforms.

Linux inherited these open systems traditions, providing UNIX / POSIX compatibility and targeting an unparalleled selection of COTS hardware, including VME, CompactPCI, and ruggedized motherboards and notebooks. Until recently, however, defense contractors were hesitant to base their designs on Linux. Reasons included reservations about the GPL, security concerns, and the need for real-time responsiveness. That attitude has changed, due to a number of factors: investments and education from industry players and publications like Open, and from the various services themselves. Now the NSA home page features its own “Security-enhanced Linux” distribution. As for responsiveness, contractors’ own testing and benchmark efforts have revealed that embedded Linux in its various forms is more than agile enough to answer the real-time call to action.

Concern over the longevity of proprietary RTOS platforms is also driving defense contractors to migrate to open, vendor-neutral solutions. At least 75% of customers traditionally purchasing source code from RTOS suppliers were building military and aerospace applications. Defense contractors reluctantly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for source or source code escrow as “insurance” to satisfy DoD regulations. With Open Source they can spend our tax dollars on actual software development.

As for weapons systems and military vehicles, Linux is a natural fit: The modern battlefield is a wide-area network. Every element in 21st century warfare is a network node – tanks, artillery, planes, warships, command bunkers, smart weapons and even the well-outfitted foot soldier. Special Forces gear is a LAN unto itself: Consider the laser-sensitive body armor communicating with tactical radio headsets, video gun sights that acquire targets, and heads-up displays that map terrain, and uplink to command and control. These designs can leverage the repertoire of IP networking native to Linux, as well as support for key middleware like CORBA and Java readily available for embedded Linux platforms.

Roll Pentagon footage. The next time you see high-tech weapons on the nightly news or hear a military jet thunder overhead, there’s probably a stalwart penguin saving lives and tax money at the same time.