UK Demands Source code for Strike Fighters

March 16th, 2006 at 21:08 Björn Hallberg

The U.K. will cancel a £12bn order for the Joint Strike Fighter if the U.S. “does not hand over full access to the computer software code that controls the jets.” “Open source” is the way to go, especially in the military world where the urge to install backdoors must be insurmountable. One can also draw further parallels to the computer and media industry and note that like with the music you buy online, you don’t really own it and constraint are put on where you can use it. Like it isn’t bad enough to be relying on a foreign power for spare parts and upgrades. It also begs to question whether access to the source code will enable one to spot backdoors as it were or if in fact such measures have been hidden on a different level altogether.

This is very interesting news since I was under the impression that the U.S. basically remained cosy with the British military and that technologies were transferred relatively unimpeded. Seems like one helluva way to maintain your friendships, because the U.K. is basically the only reliable friend that the U.S. has in Europe.
I suppose that if Britain gets an exception, other (and less reliable) buyers may wish the same. But still, seeing as the Joint Strike Fighter is primarily an export aircraft, these sort of constraints seem odd and yet rather typical for a paranoid America.

In older news: Norway to Back out of F-35 JSF Over Industrial Share? Eurofighter? JAS-39 Gripen?

Entry 489 filed under: Weapons Systems. This entry was posted 2 years, 8 months ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.