Publications

Software for Dependable Systems: Sufficient Evidence? Software for Dependable Systems: Sufficient Evidence? discusses the meaning of dependability in a software and systems context, illustrates how the growing use and complexity of software necessitates a different approach to ensuring dependability, and recommends an evidence-based approach to achieving justifiable confidence in and greater dependability of software.

Summary of a Workshop on Software Certification and Dependability Summary of a Workshop on Software Certification and Dependability provides a summary of discussions by panelists and participants at a public workshop organized by CSTB's Committee on Certifiably Dependable Software Systems and held on April 19-20, 2004.

Project Scope

This project will convene a mixed group of experts to assess current practices for developing and evaluating mission-critical software, with an emphasis on dependability objectives. The committee will address system certification, examining a few different application domains (e.g., medical devices and aviation systems) and their approaches to software evaluation and assurance. This should provide some understanding of what common ground and disparities exist. The discussion will engage members of the fundamental research community, who have been scarce in this arena. It will consider approaches to systematically assessing systems' user interfaces. It will examine potential benefits and costs of improvements in evaluation of dependability as performance dimensions. It will evaluate the extent to which current tools and techniques aid in ensuring and evaluating dependability in software and investigate technology that might support changes in the development and certification process. It will also use the information amassed to develop a research agenda for dependable software system development and certification, factoring in earlier High Confidence Software and Systems research planning. It will also investigate ideas for improving the certification processes for dependability-critical software systems.

The work of the expert committee will culminate in a written report with recommendations, which will be subject to National Research Council review processes.

Committee Members

Daniel Jackson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chair
Joshua Bloch, Google, Inc.
Michael DeWalt, Certification Systems, Inc.
Reed Gardner, University of Utah School of Medicine
Peter Lee, Carnegie Mellon University
Steven Lipner, Microsoft Corporation
Charles Perrow, Yale University
Jon Pincus, Microsoft Research
John Rushby, SRI International
Lui Sha, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Martyn Thomas, Martyn Thomas Associates
Scott Wallsten, Progress and Freedom Foundation
David Woods, Ohio State University

Staff

Lynette I. Millett, Study Director and Senior Program Officer
David Padgham, Associate Program Officer

Sponsors

National Science Foundation
National Security Agency
Office of Naval Research
Federal Aviation Administration