Criminal incompetence at the FAA

Um, I have run MS Oses successfully for months without failure - actually, I
never got to test it fully as power outages crashed it. It is not the OS
many times, rather the poor software developers who write for the OS. If
they write drivers or other kernel stuff the OS is compromised.

I suspect it is not a microsoft problem at all, rather the vendor who wrote
stuff for the OS is at fault.

If you have more specific information about this i would love to hear about
it.


"zatatime" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:51:53 GMT, (No Such User)
wrote:

Whoever made this purchase should be in jail:

http://software.silicon.com/applicat...9124122,00.htm

It's shameful that they would trust people's lives to a computer
system that had to be "reset every thirty days" just to keep from
crashing.

Microsoft delenda est.

Now I'm scared! Microsoft shouldn't be making systems for critical
applications. I agree whoever made the purchase should be in jail,
but only after a public flogging by every rated pilot and controller.

I doubt it will happen, but I hpe they go back to using a real OS like
UNIX for this stuff, else progress will become an oxymoron.

z

"Richard Hertz" wrote in message
t...
[...]
I suspect it is not a microsoft problem at all, rather the vendor who
wrote
stuff for the OS is at fault.

Indeed, even the blatantly anti-Microsoft website reporting the "news"
points out that it's the FAA who will fix the problem. Last I checked, they
had nothing to do with writing any of Microsoft's software. Since they are
going to fix things, obviously it's not anything Microsoft actually
published that was at fault here.

Still, sure is fun to see all the anti-Microsoft religious fanatics fall all
over themselves trying to turn this into a "it's Microsoft's fault" thing.

Pete

In article , "Richard Hertz"
writes:

Um, I have run MS Oses successfully for months without failure - actually, I
never got to test it fully as power outages crashed it. It is not the OS
many times, rather the poor software developers who write for the OS. If
they write drivers or other kernel stuff the OS is compromised.

Well, I've run non-MS Oses for YEARS without failure. The only threat these
systems usually face is power starvation.

I recently laughed at an arrangement made between Fiat and Microsoft, for an
operating system to run their automobiles; an auto world renown for poor
quality and reliability run by an operating system known for the same; truly a
marriage made in hell. Considering the expensive overkill in reliability that
the FAA demands in so many of the components that we use in aviation, why
they'd tolerate a Windows based system is beyond me.

I vividly recall the debate that took place in the mid-80s about the future of
computing when the world had finally been convinced that microcomputers really
were capable of more than tinkering and games. What the world needed was an OS
that offered the stability, security, and multi-tasking ability of mainframes,
but without the resource & performance consuming bloat that existed within the
older and larger systems. Microsoft was in a position to offer the world an OS
that was tightly optimized for the future of personal computers.

What did we end up with? A PC operating system that is literally the worst of
both worlds; hideously bloated, and far more insecure and stable than the
systems it was designed to replace!

It's truly an irony that so many power users today look at Linux, a Unix
derivative, as the future. In the '80s, we rejected Unix as representative of
the bloated mainframe past we wished to escape. Today, geeks run Linux servers
with 99.9%+ reliability on hardware that Windows will barely boot on.

John

(JohnMcGrew) writes:

Considering the expensive overkill in reliability that
the FAA demands in so many of the components that we use in aviation, why
they'd tolerate a Windows based system is beyond me.

It's not just the FAA that makes this mistake. Anybody remember this?


GOVERNMENT NEWS
GCN July 13, 1998


Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water
By Gregory Slabodkin
GCN Staff

The Navy's Smart Ship technology may not be as smart as the service
contends.

Although PCs have reduced workloads for sailors aboard the Aegis
missile cruiser USS Yorktown, software glitches resulted in system
failures and crippled ship operations, according to Navy officials.

Navy brass have called the Yorktown Smart Ship pilot a success in
reducing manpower, maintenance and costs. The Navy began running
shipboard applications under Microsoft Windows NT so that fewer
sailors would be needed to control key ship functions.

But the Navy last fall learned a difficult lesson about automation:
The very information technology on which the ships depend also makes
them vulnerable. The Yorktown last September suffered a systems
failure when bad data was fed into its computers during maneuvers off
the coast of Cape Charles, Va.

The ship had to be towed into the Naval base at Norfolk, Va., because
a database overflow caused its propulsion system to fail, according to
Anthony DiGiorgio, a civilian engineer with the Atlantic Fleet
Technical Support Center in Norfolk.

"We are putting equipment in the engine room that we cannot maintain
and, when it fails, results in a critical failure," DiGiorgio said. It
took two days of pierside maintenance to fix the problem.

The Yorktown has been towed into port after other systems failures, he
said.

On 23 Sep 2004 18:18:34 -0700, Bob Fry
wrote in
::

Anybody remember this?


GOVERNMENT NEWS
GCN July 13, 1998


Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water

I remember. I found the absence of the web content hosted on the
Yorktown to be significant loss.

However, the Yorktown wasn't running WinXP, which seems orders of
magnitude more stable than previous MS releases.

Regardless of the OS controlling the ZLA center communications, the
person who approved the intentional shutdown of all aviation
communications without any warning is truly guilty of the subject
offence, IMNSHO.

"Richard Hertz" writes:

Um, I have run MS Oses successfully for months without failure - actually, I
never got to test it fully as power outages crashed it. It is not the OS
many times, rather the poor software developers who write for the OS. If
they write drivers or other kernel stuff the OS is compromised.

Um, one of the jobs of an Operating System for the last 20-30 years
has been to protect the OS, and thus other processes, from poor or
even malicious software. Other OSs accomplish this quite well...but
not Windows.

Bob Fry writes:

"Richard Hertz" writes:

Um, I have run MS Oses successfully for months without failure - actually, I
never got to test it fully as power outages crashed it. It is not the OS
many times, rather the poor software developers who write for the OS. If
they write drivers or other kernel stuff the OS is compromised.

Um, one of the jobs of an Operating System for the last 20-30 years
has been to protect the OS, and thus other processes, from poor or
even malicious software. Other OSs accomplish this quite well...but
not Windows.

Well, stuff running in kernel mode will trump whatever mechanisms
the OS has to protect itself.

But that's OK, Windows is easily crashed with user mode stuff.

-jav