The Linux Plumbers Conference is the premier event for developers working at all levels of the plumbing layer and beyond.
Taking place on Thursday 11th, Friday 12th and Saturday 13th of December, this year we will be both in person and remote (hybrid). However to minimize technical issues, we’d appreciate most of the content presenters being in-person.
The in-person venue is the Toranomon Hills Forum, Tokyo, Japan.
LPC Microconference
A microconference contains several sessions based on the same general topic. Each session will be between 15 to 30 minutes in length and be discussion oriented.
Safe Systems with Linux MC
As Linux continues to be deployed in systems with varying criticality constraints, progress needs to be made in establishing consistent linkage between code, tests, and requirements, to improve overall efficiency and ability to support necessary analysis.
This MC addresses critical challenges in expectation management (aka requirements tracking), documentation, testing, and artifact sharing within the Linux kernel ecosystem. While tests are contributed for the code, traditionally the underlying requirement that the tests satisfies is likewise not documented in a structured manner. This has resulted in a large amount of “tribal knowledge” associated with subsystems, which results in technical debt when maintainers stop working on subsystems.
Taking in the feedback from last year’s “Safe Systems with Linux” miniconference 1, on how we can improve the documentation of the kernel’s design [1a] the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) community has focused on prototyping a template for capturing the requirements with volunteer linux kernel subsystem maintainers. The ELISA architecture team 2 has been meeting weekly and has developed a structured approach for documenting testable expectations with a template that allows embedding requirements directly with relevant code (as requested in the initial workshop) while maintaining machine readability and forming a base for improving testing with initiatives like KernelCI. The prototype format got initial review and feedback in December at the ELISA workshop at Goddard [3] and after incorporating that feedback in the workshop in Lund in May [4].
Initial pilots in the TRACING subsystem [5] have demonstrated the value of this approach, even resulting in the identification and fixing of previously unknown issues. [6,7]
Building on the last year’s discussions, the goal of this miniconference is to get wider feedback from additional maintainers and developers of different subsystems on the approach being proposed.
Potential Topics
- Progress on Linux Kernel Requirements Framework
Discussing the SPDX-based template for low-level requirements, lessons learned from initial pilots, and plans for wider adoption. - Technical Debt Reduction
How documented requirements capture understanding of original functionality, and can be leveraged for verification when code needs to be rewritten (ie. C to Rust), etc. - Requirements-Driven Testing
How documented requirements can drive test case development and validation. Connecting relevant test cases with specific requirements and code, should be able to yield more efficient testing. - Semantic Aspects of Kernel Requirements
Exploring how to properly document expected behaviors with consideration for design elements that impact or are impacted by these behaviors. - Practical Implementation Challenges
Addressing the balance between detailed requirements documentation and maintaining kernel development velocity. - Required tools for automation
Progress on tools to generate, validate, and track work products increasing dependability throughout the kernel development process. - Industry Adoption
How safety-critical industries are beginning to leverage these developments for certification and compliance purposes. How their safety engineers can participate in contributing formalized requirements to the kernel and providing linkage. - Requirements as an Education Tool
How linux kernel documentation can mine the requirements, and help new contributors understand kernel functionality and design intent and attract new upsteam developers
Session Highlights:
- Aspects of Dependable Linux Systems – Kate Stewart (Linux Foundation), Philipp Ahmann (Etas GmbH (BOSCH)) – 12 Dec 2025, 10:00
- NVIDIA Approach for Achieving ASIL B Qualified Linux: minimizing expectations from upstream kernel processes -Igor Stoppa (nvidia) -12 Dec 2025, 10:10am
- Applying Program Verification to Linux Kernel Code: Challenges, Practices, and Automation – Keisuke Nishimura – 12 Dec 2025, 10:35
- Defining and maintaining requirements in the Linux Kernel – Chuck Wolber, Gabriele Paoloni (Red Hat), Kate Stewart (Linux Foundation) – 12 Dec 2025, 11:00
- KUnit Testing Insufficiencies – Matthew Whitehead (The Boeing Company) – 12 Dec 2025, 12:00
- Exploring possibilities for integrating StrictDoc with ELISA’s requirements template approach for the Linux kernel – Tobias Deiminger (Linutronix GmbH) – 12 Dec 2025, 12:25
- BASIL: Open Source Traceability for Safety-Critical Systems” – Luigi Pellecchia – 12 Dec 2025, 12:40
- Tooling and Sharing Traceability Discussion – Luigi Pellecchia, Matthew Whitehead (The Boeing Company), Tobias Deiminger (Linutronix GmbH) – 12 Dec 2025, 12:55
- Wrap up and next steps – Kate Stewart (Linux Foundation), Philipp Ahmann (Etas GmbH (BOSCH)) – 12 Dec 2025, 13:20
Learn more about the sessions here.
