The US military wants to accelerate software development significantly. That could be a moral dilemma for the open source community.

Not only companies like Microsoft, IBM and SAP seem to use Kubernetes for the containerization of software. The US Air Force also uses the open source program for its own purposes. For example, it was used in connection with the upcoming B-21 Raider stealth bomber. “Our B-21 team just ran containerized software with Kubernetes on ready-to-fly hardware,” said Will Roper, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, on LinkedIn.

The US military wants to accelerate the development and implementation of new software for its own projects. The division of larger programs into micro services and their containerization should be a step towards the goal of DevStar. This is an initiative of the Air Force, which, according to its own statements, is developing “combat-efficient combat options at relevant speed”. It currently takes months or even years to prepare new weapon systems and tests for aircraft.

Open source for atomic bombers

There are some critical voices under the Linkedin post, some of which see nothing special in the announcement. “All people in the private sector shake their heads and wonder why something that is common almost everywhere else is something to celebrate,” wrote entrepreneur Mark Montgomery. It is also strange that the US Air Force provides details of the development process of the B-21 Raider. The military may want competing nations to keep an eye on it so other processes go unnoticed at first. Since Kubernetes is open source, the Air Force’s involvement in the project could be revealed in the future anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLscVP9R4e8

The moral question arises to what extent the open source community stands around the tool for the B-21 project. The successor to the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit should fly from 2025, have similar stealth abilities and use the well-known flying wing design. The bomber is said to be able to carry conventional warheads, but will also be usable for nuclear weapons. That alone is certainly an argument for some development teams to question their involvement in Kubernetes. It will be shown what that looks like.