I was thinking more along the lines of removing features to simplify maintenance, Gnome 3 style.
"Good news, General. We've found a way to lower maintenance costs in the cockpit systems by 10% if we removed this thing here on the blueprints, so we've already gone ahead with that change."
"But that's the emergency ejection system!"
"Yes, and our data indicates that it's almost never used. It doesn't really make sense to devote manpower to keeping a system running that few people ever need. If we get rid of it, we can free up developer-hours to making the canopy opening/closing action a little smoother. Everyone uses the canopy."
I agree that Kubernetes-powered fighter jets is a bad idea, bordering on catastrophically bad.
That said, I assume they'll be using Kubernetes as a development and test platform -on the ground- to produce some form of binary output that would go on the plane.
If it's any k8s distro let it be openshift. Best selinux integration.
That said, how can you not wince reading, "To do this, Lockheed wanted to adopt principles and frameworks common in software lexicon like agile, scrum, minimum viable product (MVP) and DevSecOps."
Avionics software on new systems is, in a way, logically similar to kubernetes actually :)
Instead of having separate computers, you now tend to have fewer "servers" which run multiple modules in isolated partitions, communicating over the common network using unidirectional messages; whether using SAE AS5643 - aka IEEE-1394 - like in F-35 and X-47, or over mutated Ethernet known as AFDX (A380, A350, B787).
However a big portion of JSF issues is also in ground software - there's a dedicated set of platforms required to operate F-35, which is also known for infamously depending on connectivity to Lockheed servers or the airplane stops working.
The system involved, ALIS, had als infamously took more time to deploy during a test squadron redeployment than the whole redeployment - which I guess they might be trying to speed up using Kubernetes.
From what I heard ALIS appears to still be done the same style as certain other logistics software from lockheed back in 2010, and that doesn't say anything good.
> ...today announced that Lockheed Martin worked with Red Hat to modernize the application development process used to bring new capabilities to the U.S. Air Force’s fleet of F-22 Raptor fighter jets.
They later talk about agile vs waterfall as well as devops. It doesn't read like this is going on a plane, probably just dev and test environments.
"Good news, General. We've found a way to lower maintenance costs in the cockpit systems by 10% if we removed this thing here on the blueprints, so we've already gone ahead with that change."
"But that's the emergency ejection system!"
"Yes, and our data indicates that it's almost never used. It doesn't really make sense to devote manpower to keeping a system running that few people ever need. If we get rid of it, we can free up developer-hours to making the canopy opening/closing action a little smoother. Everyone uses the canopy."