- cross-posted to:
- opensource@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- opensource@lemmy.ml
Ukraine used ArduPilot to help it wipe out Russian targets. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last.
Open source software used by hobbyist drones powered an attack that wiped out a third of Russia’s strategic long range bombers on Sunday afternoon, in one of the most daring and technically coordinated attacks in the war.
In broad daylight on Sunday, explosions rocked air bases in Belaya, Olenya, and Ivanovo in Russia, which are hundreds of miles from Ukraine. The Security Services of Ukraine’s (SBU) Operation Spider Web was a coordinated assault on Russian targets it claimed was more than a year in the making, which was carried out using a nearly 20-year-old piece of open source drone autopilot software called ArduPilot.
ArduPilot’s original creators were in awe of the attack. “That’s ArduPilot, launched from my basement 18 years ago. Crazy,” Chris Anderson said in a comment on LinkedIn below footage of the attack.
Can you imagine if they had to license it? lol
Ohhh sorryyyy. We would LOVE to support your attack which will be unprecedented in modern warfare… if only there wasn’t this tiny little eensy-weensy license ‘issue’. We’ve moved to a subscription for your drone warfare software. Per device. You can save 10% if you subscribe for a year. Early termination fee applies. To cancel you’ll have to call and attempt the phone labyrinth. $19.99/min.
I’m now imagining a scenario in which the democratic nations of the world are in a war against oligarchs with corporate armies, and the corpos losing due to their hardware having licensing issues. Like the corpos are so addicted to fucking people over they can’t help but fuck their allies over.