One of the worst things about government is that it rarely keeps itself to the standard of what's cheapest that will accomplish the mission. They just saved $15 million of my tax dollars, so I'm happy.
Oh, I forgot, you prefer subsidies to IT companies in the form of the government always paying more than it needs to, and you don't mind that the taxpayers get stuck with the bill.
I for one know I won't feel any safer next time I'm flying!
Just be glad they didn't go with Microsoft. There was a Microsoft system in air traffic control that required regular restarts to keep running. They were normally scheduled every 30 days to avoid the bug (which blew every 49.7 days), but someone forgot and the machine restarted itself right in the middle of operations, threatening air traffic. It was a problem with using Microsoft's RPC and GetTickCount(). They didn't have that problem when it was running on UNIX.
Do you have a link for this? I have a link that says this was a fault with Harris' implementation of the software that uses GetTickCount, and that the 49.7 day limitation of it in the API is due to it being 32-bits.
Additionally, it went on to say that the FAA had been meaning to get the program changed, but in the interim implemented a 30day reboot sked so as not to come close to the 49.7 limit.