[SystemSafety] State of the art for "safe Linux"

[Dewi Daniels]

Well said, Peter.

Yours,

Dewi Daniels | Director | Software Safety Limited

Telephone +44 7968 837742 | Email dewi.daniels at software-safety.com

Software Safety Limited is a company registered in England and Wales.
Company number: 9390590. Registered office: Fairfield, 30F Bratton Road,
West Ashton, Trowbridge, United Kingdom BA14 6AZ


On Mon, 5 Aug 2024 at 16:43, Prof. Dr. Peter Bernard Ladkin <
ladkin at causalis.com> wrote:

> Paul,
>
> there seems to be a largish disconnect between the work you cite, and any
> applications I know of of
> safety-related software from my contacts in the 61508 standards community.
> I don't know specifically
> about the civil-aerospace applications as much as Dewi does.
>
> If you (and colleagues) wish to use a given piece of software in a
> safety-critical application, I
> don't think you have any other option but to try to conform with
> applicable software functional
> safety standards, whether you like them or not. Any possible client must
> know that they will not be
> driven into bankruptcy if some system using this software fails and causes
> harm (which is always a
> possibility). That means you need some kind of assessment from recognised
> assessors such as TÜV
> Rheinland or TÜV Süd. Those assessors will write you a certificate
> concerning standards they are
> familiar with. A client can then use the software according to the
> conditions expressed in the
> certificate, and will be deemed by most courts (which is where claims of
> damages from harm end up)
> to have exercised what the Brits call due diligence by so doing.
>
> If you want to change standards to accommodate another "vision", there is
> one and only one way of
> doing so. That is by joining a standards committee and influencing them to
> change the standard. That
> is harder than you may anticipate.
>
> This business about "Linux kernel for safety-related systems" has been
> going on for so long. Other
> companies have written kernel-function OSs for safety-critical systems,
> and have assessment
> certificates for them from recognised assessors, all within that time.
> What's wrong with trying that
> route?
>
> Imagining you can use statistical assessment to validate the use of
> complex software on complex
> hardware in critical applications, is, I would suggest, a pipe dream. The
> maths on the amount of
> evidence you need, let alone the constraints on the quality of that
> evidence, is sufficient to
> pretty much rule it out.
>
> PBL
>
> Prof. Dr. Peter Bernard Ladkin
> Causalis Limited/Causalis IngenieurGmbH, Bielefeld, Germany
> Tel: +49 (0)521 3 29 31 00
>
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