I find it interesting that this project will make use of Red Hat 6.8 to complete the COTS picture.
For other needs, the software suite has to show a high level of reliability as well. Think along the lines of DO-178* (safety/mission critical) requirements
Witness efforts with QuickSAT/XEN ( https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearc... ) and the work from Victor with GalacticSky ( http://www.galacticsky.net/ )

It's been discussed as far back as the late 50's and early 60's that we're enjoying a global warm-up following the last ice-age.
It is wonderful to see the science reach back into the historical record to try and fix the trends we're seeing though.

There are a few problems with this.
While I might agree that if you are going to charge one person sales tax to purchase thing, you really ought to charge them all...
But the sales tax system is just burdensome and nasty out there. Sales tax laws vary from state to state and even within cities! Trying to keep track of the nexus of taxation is totally a pain in the ass. And then dealing with the multiple state auditors when they come knocking on your door to prove every single piece of kit you send somewhere is properly accounted for in your taxation records...
Suppose I live in New York, and I order a widget from a company based in Arkansas, but with a DC in California, and they need to send to my current location in Colorado--on the east side of Main Street (which has a different tax rate than the west side of Main Street between 4th and Elm...).
Which sales tax do I need to pay?
At the end of the day, only larger firms will be able to afford the grief/expenditure that this level of taxation and taxation support systems requires. And only rarely does anybody get to the details where they discussion the difficulties in dealing with taxation nexus.

Actually the New York Times did get a hold of some documents back during the Vietnam War. It ended up in the US Supreme Court (look up "Pentagon Papers").
Secrecy is necessary. There is no question of that. But then KEEP IT SECRET! After 9/11 when the government got slapped for not sharing intel, they responded by letting everybody and their uncle read this stuff. That's not the way to keep secrets.
Trying to wrap your head around what intel needs to be kept and who really needs to be able to see it is a huge task. One that has not been handled well.
For some other disucssions around this topic check out the Secrecy Blog ( http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ ).

Incorrect. The storage spanning is part of the OS itself. You can even encounter this issue when you are trying to design apps that have a larger footprint than physical memory in the device. No hardware required. This is an OS thing.

My question is: why we didn't hear about these requirements (the internal storage is spanned onto the expansion microsd storage--with vague requirements) when the devs started getting kits and working with this almost a year ago. So much for getting good advance info about this fantastic new product into the ether. Nah: We'll just spew the marketing cruft instead. It's easier. >sigh

I do not see anything in the complaint about what software (or in a more general sense: HOW) the school administrators were able to remotely take control of the webcams.
Does anybody out there have any idea what was used for this purpose? Or has anybody gotten to place hands on one of these laptops to take a look at what was loaded?
And would it have been possible for someone knowledgeable to find and defeat this software as part of a normal computer cleanup process?