[SystemSafety] proofs

[Steve Tockey]

Paul E. Bennett wrote:

³As I know I have stated many times before, like hardware components,
software components need to be supplied with a descriptive data-sheet that
explicitly states what the functionality of the component is²

Do you have any thoughts on what the data-sheet like description of the
functionality of a software component should look like?


Cheers,

‹ steve



-----Original Message-----
From: systemsafety <systemsafety-bounces at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
on behalf of "paul_e.bennett at topmail.co.uk" <paul_e.bennett at topmail.co.uk>
Date: Thursday, November 22, 2018 at 10:02 AM
To: "systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de"
<systemsafety at lists.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de>
Subject: Re: [SystemSafety] proofs

On 22/11/2018 at 4:48 PM, "Martyn Thomas" <martyn at thomas-associates.co.uk>
wrote:
>
>On 22/11/2018 14:48, Olwen Morgan wrote:
>
>> Actually, after having sent this, it occurred to me that
>blockchain
>> technology might allow arbitrary proof-checkers to check putative
>> proofs on a double-blind anonymity basis. Perhaps this could
>address
>> IPR/confidentiality issues for the proof developer?
>>
>> Just a thought.
>>
>> O
>>
>I don't see the benefit of blockchain in this application, nor the
>need
>to be double blind. Wouldn't it be better to put the proofs
>somewhere
>public and have proofcheckers attach signed certificates saying
>they had
>checked and verified the proofs?
>
>But the problem remains that it will be necessary to show that the
>logic
>that the proofcheckers analyse is a correct representation of the
>software and of the claims being made about the properties of that
>software when it runs in the target environment. How would that
>best be
>achieved?
>
>Martyn

As I know I have stated many times before, like hardware components,
software components need to be supplied with a descriptive data-sheet that
explicitly states what the functionality of the component is, the
environmental
expectations and limitations of use. Against such a data-sheet, you can
then
apply the proofs, tests and other quality determination to allow
assessment of
whether such a component is fit for purpose. After all, we already do this
for
the hardware side of things. Again, why is software so different?

Just to be clear, the standard of documentation on most software I have
seen
is thoroughly inadequate to be able to make such assessments and it costs
time (and hence money) to begin even a cursory evaluation.

Regards

Paul E. Bennett IEng MIET
Systems Engineer
Lunar Mission One Ambassador
-- 
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