maemalynn

Apr 03

Schedule for Safety-Critical Software 2025 Now Live

By maemalynn Announcement, Blog, Safety-Critical Software Summit

Open Source Summit North America, happening on June 23-25 in Denver, Colorado, is the premier event for open source developers, technologists, and community leaders to collaborate, share information, solve problems, and gain knowledge, furthering open source innovation and ensuring a sustainable open source ecosystem. It is the gathering place for open-source code and community contributors. One of the tracks includes, Safety-Critical Software, which will feature several ELISA-project related sessions.

The Safety-Critical Software track will take place on Wednesday, June 25. It explores the intersection of open source and safety standards, covering best practices for regulatory compliance, security updates, and safety engineering. Check out the sessions below, which dive into requirements traceability, quality assessments, safety analysis methodologies, and technical development for safety-critical systems.

11 – 11:40 am: The Xen Safety Concept, a Major Milestone Toward Certification – Stefano Stabellini, AMD

Over the past decade, the Xen community has worked tirelessly to develop key features that now form a top-tier automotive solution. Xen’s most important role remains that of an enforcer, ensuring strict isolation between domains so that the execution of one domain remains unaffected by others. As one of the system’s most critical components, Xen is well suited for the highest levels of safety certification.

Since 2023, AMD, in collaboration with the Xen community, has been working to make Xen safety-certifiable according to the ISO 26262 and IEC 61508 safety standards. A major milestone was achieved in Q4 2024 when we obtained Safety Concept Approval from the safety assessors. They reviewed Xen and our safety plans and confirmed compliance with the relevant standards. This is a critical milestone on the road to Xen safety, demonstrating that Xen can be safety-certified.

This presentation will provide detailed insights into the Safety Concept, the activities involved in its development, and the review process. Additionally, it will offer an in-depth update on our journey toward achieving Xen safety certification.

11:55-12:30 pm: Verifying the Rust Standard Library – Rahul Kumar, Amazon Web Services

The Rust programming language is experiencing rapid adoption in critical infrastructure and systems programming, propelled by its memory safety guarantees and developer productivity advantages. Significant technology policies, such as the US National Cyber Strategy, explicitly endorse Rust as a pathway to memory-safe software. Unsafe code blocks, however, can circumvent Rust’s compile-time guarantees. To address this disparity, AWS has collaborated with the Rust Foundation on the Rust Standard Library Verification project, whose objective is to formally verify the safety of the Rust standard library. We are actively integrating automated verification into the Rust Library release process, thereby ensuring continuous safety validation across releases.

Our presentation will elucidate the structural framework and rationale underpinning our verification contest. We will demonstrate our current progress, showcasing successful verification examples and discussing the diverse open-source tools employed in the verification process. We will conclude with our prioritized areas for 2025 and practical ways for the Rust community to actively participate in this pivotal security initiative.

Recently the Safe Open Vehicle Core (S-Core) project was started as a collaborative code-first project between automotive OEMs and Tier suppliers developing a safety-certifiable middleware stack for high-performance ECUs in software-defined vehicles. Targeting the non-differentiating core functionality, S-Core middleware software sits between the hardware abstraction layer and the platform API accessed by vehicle function applications. Compatible with POSIX-based OSes like Automotive Grade Linux and complementary to the ELISA project, S-Core focuses on achieving ISO 26262, ASPICE, and ISO 21434 compliance.

This presentation details S-Core’s development process, scope, status, and timeline, highlighting its integration within the broader automotive safety and SDV landscape. The author further showcases the project’s work towards robust and automated development through a docs-as-code approach utilizing open-source tools such as ReStructuredText, Sphinx-Needs, Bazel, and PlantUML

3:05 – 3:45 pm: Software Supply Chain for the SDV Future — Logistics, Cybersecurity and Compliance – Hasan Yasar, Software Engineering Institute | Carnegie Mellon University

The shift towards software-defined vehicles (SDVs) is set to profoundly impact Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and their supply chains. As vehicles become increasingly defined by software and connectivity, OEMs face a new era of software supply chain logistics that emphasizes agility, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance. This presentation examines how SDV technology affects each stage of the OEM supply chain, from sourcing and logistics to manufacturing and data-driven optimization. Critical to this transformation is the secure management of software and data flows across the supply chain, with a focus on cybersecurity strategies to counter software-based vulnerabilities. Additionally, the presentation explores how data analytics can be leveraged to streamline logistics and ensure compliance with rapidly evolving regulations.

As open-source adoption expands into safety-critical domains, ensuring continuous compliance is a growing challenge. This session, grounded in the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) project, explores how SBOM-driven traceability can bridge the gap between open-source development and regulatory safety requirements. We’ll cover how SPDX 3.x, automated CI/CD workflows, and tools like ELISA’s BASIL enable traceability between compliance requirements, validation tests, and software components. Attendees will gain insights into best practices for managing SBOM evolution, mitigating risks in change impact analysis, and integrating compliance automation into modern DevOps pipelines. Whether you’re in open-source governance or safety-critical software engineering, this session provides actionable strategies to align compliance with innovation.

Other ELISA-related sessions include:

As part of a broader effort to document the architecture and design of the Linux Kernel, we propose a method to formally describe low level developer intent in the form of testable expectations (i.e. requirements). This will provide a fact based foundation for pass/fail test development, test validation via code coverage tools, support optional traceability to higher level design, and enable tool development for process automation.

This talk is a continuation of the proposal for Linux Kernel Requirements that formally originated at the 2024 Linux Plumbers Safe Systems with Linux Mini-conference, and further updated at the December 2024 ELISA Workshop at Goddard Space Center.

This edition will present the current state of the requirement template design, provide examples of Linux kernel source code instrumented with low level requirements, present technical explanations for template design decisions, and provide an opportunity for feedback from the developer community.

Open source software has long been utilized in automotive systems, yet the industry is experiencing a renewed focus on its strategic utilization also sparked by the so called Software Defined Vehicle. The establishment of OSPOs across numerous OEMs and Tier suppliers further signals this shift.

This panel digs into the motivations and implications of this trend. The panelist will explore the historical context of OSS in automotive, contrasting it with the current OSPO-driven approach. Key discussion points include the rationale for OSPO creation, the specific challenges they tackle – particularly in light of global sanctions, increasing connectivity demands, and the imperative for cyber resilience – and the anticipated impact on the automotive software landscape with regulated safety-critical Software Defined Vehicle systems.

Learn more about the conference on the main event site here or register by April 7 for the early bird discount here.

Mar 17

Honda and KernelCI join the Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA) Project to Strengthen the Kernel and Drive Innovation in Functional Safety in Automotives

By maemalynn Announcement, News, Safety-Critical Software Summit

SAN FRANCISCO, March 17, 2025 – Today, the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) Project welcomes Honda and KernelCI to its ecosystem. This collaboration marks a significant milestone, as both organizations commit to advancing its commitment to Linux and its effective use in safety-critical applications. Hosted by the Linux Foundation, ELISA is an open source initiative that aims to create a shared set of elements, processes, and tools to help companies build and certify Linux-based safety-critical applications and systems.

“The automotive industry heavily relies on open source software, and Linux is becoming a foundational pillar for safety-critical applications,” said Philipp Ahmann, Senior Open Source Software Community Manager at ETAS and Chair of the ELISA Project Technical Steering Committee. “By leveraging rigorous testing, automation, and industry collaboration, we can ensure that Linux meets the strong requirements of functional safety standards while driving innovation, reliability, and maintainability in modern vehicles. With Honda’s ‘power of dreams’ and their technical excellence, we have no doubt that they will help the ELISA Project meet many milestones this year.”

Honda is a mobility company powered by everyone’s dreams, creating mobility that helps and inspires people, in a wide range of fields such as motorcycles, automobiles, power products and aircraft. Honda has been actively integrating Linux-based solutions into its automotive technologies, focusing on enhancing in-vehicle infotainment and connectivity.

“Honda has a remarkable position as the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and the world’s largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines,” said Shane Coughlan, OpenChain General Manager. “By recently joining the Zephyr Project, OpenChain last year and now the ELISA Project, Honda has underlined its position as a thought leader in open source. We are fortunate to have companies like Honda driving lasting change.”

KernelCI is a community-based open source distributed test automation system focused on building a collaborative ecosystem around upstream kernel development. The primary goal of KernelCI is to use an open testing philosophy to ensure the quality, stability and long-term maintenance of the Linux kernel. The Project is currently working on improved LTS kernel testing and validation; consolidation of existing testing initiatives; quality-of-life improvements to the current service; expanded compute resources; and increased pool of hardware to be tested.

“Collaboration with KernelCI strengthens our commitment to ensuring the reliability and safety of Linux in critical applications,” said Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems. “By working with them to improve code testing coverage, as well as link requirements to tests, we can enhance kernel stability, improve the efficiency of testing changes to the kernel, and drive innovation to enable continuous safety profile compliance across automotive and embedded systems.”

“KernelCI is already collaborating with the linux kernel community to build a service and ecosystem to tackle the challenges of testing,” said Don Zickus, Chair of the KernelCI Advisory Board. “Expanding our efforts to include ELISA’s goals is a natural fit and we are excited to pursue this journey with them.”

Honda joins ELISA Project General Members AISIN, arm, Bosch, Canonical, Codethink, Elektrobit, EMQ, Huawei, Linutronix, Lynx Software Technologies, Nissan Motor Corporation, SAIC Motor and WindRiver. KernelCI joins other associate members Automotive Grade Linux, Institute of Aircraft Systems Engineering and The Regensburg University of Applied Sciences. ELISA Project Premier Members include Boeing and Redhat. Learn more about membership here.

Safety-Critical Software

Open Source Summit North America, scheduled for June 23-25 in Denver, Colorado, offers a rich array of technical content. This conference is an umbrella event for microconferences like the Safety-Critical Software that drives open source innovation and supports the sustainability of the ecosystem. The schedule will go live in April. Register here for early-bird pricing.

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, OpenChain, OpenSSF, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, Zephyr, and more. The Linux Foundation focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org. The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks.

For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Oct 30

A recap of Open Source Summit Europe (Vienna)

By maemalynn Blog, Industry Conference

Written By Will Stonier, Content Marketing Executive at Codethink and Paul Albertella, ELISA Project TSC member, Chair for Open Source Engineering Process Working Group and Consultant at Codethink

This blog originally ran on the Codethink website. For more content like this, click here.

Vienna hosted this year’s European Open Source Summit (OSSEU). Several team members travelled to the ‘City of Music’ to participate in talks and discussions, eat traditional Austrian food, and discuss the future of open source and Linux. The venue was the Austria Center, located in the city’s North East.

OSSEU is one of the bigger events in the open source calendar, with thousands of attendees and a wide array of talks and vendor stands. Moreover, there is a growing number of micro-conferences focussing on topics and domains under the open source umbrella.

Two Codethings presented at OSSEU. Ben Dook’s talk, ‘Real-time Scheduling Fault Simulation,’ examined some methods Codethink has used for fault injection via both user and kernel space in our client work. As part of our work within critical safety, questions frequently arise on how to test processes that rely on real-time scheduling.

Sudip Mukherjee’s talk, ‘Testing, a Journey from Testing Kernels to Testing Debian and Yocto,’ focused on how Sudip started testing the Linux Kernel in a personal capacity and the status of kernel testing as part of his role at Codet hink. You can watch Sudip’s talk here:

However, the conference had something for everyone. For those of the team who focus on open source software in safety and security systems, there was the Critical Software Summit on the first day, and relevant talks on the Embedded Linux track, including one on ‘Linux in Space’ and another on spatial safety in Linux (two very different topics!).

The conference also provided an excellent opportunity for team members to explore Linux kernel topics more deeply. Paul Albertella noted that a talk about power management features was especially helpful, as it drew his attention to the power management of individual devices at runtime as distinct from the system as a whole, helping him navigate tricky nuances of his own laptop!

Here’s what Joshua Zivkovic had to say about Open Source Summit Europe:

“Linux Foundation events, like Open Source Summit EU, provide a way for every corner of the open source world to come together to share innovations, expertise, and experiences amongst the endless number of microcosms of open source.”

Finally, the conference caught the headlines (and caused chatter in the Codethink office) with the announcement that real-time Linux is now officially part of the kernel. This is exciting news, and we’ll be watching how this progresses.

We’ll see you next year!

If you’d like to learn more about the events Codethink attends, please visit our events page.

ELISA Project Welcomes Hamburg University of Technology – Institute of Aircraft Systems Engineering and Lynx Software Technologies to Strengthen their Commitment to Safety-Critical Applications in Aerospace

By maemalynn Announcement, News

VIENNA, AUSTRIA — Open Source Summit Europe – September 16, 2024 – Today, the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) Project welcomes Hamburg University Technology – Institute of Aircraft Systems Engineering and Lynx Software Technologies to its ecosystem. This collaboration marks a significant milestone, as both organizations commit to advancing its commitment to Linux and its effective use in safety-critical applications. Hosted by the Linux Foundation, ELISA is an open source initiative that aims to create a shared set of tools and processes to help companies build and certify Linux-based safety-critical applications and systems.

Lynx Software Technologies, which joined as a General Member, enhances high-assurance Mission Critical Edge platforms with modular, open-standard software.

“In many aerospace and defense applications, Lynx observes a strong interest from primes and OEMs to make Linux a viable option for safety-critical applications,” said Tim Reed, CEO of Lynx Software Technologies. “The goal of the ELISA Project, to define and demonstrate methodologies that allow Linux to be used in such applications, aligns with our market view. Lynx is pleased to join the group and anticipates bringing its expertise in open standards to the ELISA Project to help reduce the costs associated with safety certification.”

Hamburg University Technology – Institute of Aircraft Systems Engineering, which joined as an associate member, emphasizes research priority, interdisciplinarity and innovation, while contributing to collaborative international efforts.

“Powerful avionics platforms in aircrafts are key for modern flight systems and drive innovations in software,” said Martin Halle, PhD, Senior Engineer of the Institute of Aircraft Systems Engineering of Hamburg University of Technology. “Open standards for the operating system and APIs are important to achieve not only safety but also a freedom of choice for system- and user-applications that demand more and more flexibility and performance while retaining safety. Therefore, we are contributing to the ELISA Aerospace Working Group to come up with a certifiable infrastructure for a Linux real-time kernel for safety-critical applications. We will also share recent insights, concepts and achievements of the joint activity through publications and teaching activities.”

The Aerospace Working Group aims to collaborate with industry partners to make Linux compliant with the stringent requirements needed for certification in aviation, space systems, and other aerospace fields. The Aerospace Working Group develops use cases to inform and influence Linux architecture and related tools, work to derive technical requirements for avionics operating systems, and seek to enhance and expand avionics software lifecycle processes, practices, and tools to enable use of Linux in avionics systems that are certified to high design assurance levels. Get involved here.

Critical Software Summit

Open Source Summit Europe, scheduled for September 16-18 in Vienna, Austria, offers a rich array of technical content. This conference is an umbrella event that for microconferences like the Critical Software Summit that drives open source innovation and supports the sustainability of the ecosystem. On Monday September 16, several ambassadors, contributors, and leaders from the ELISA Project will be giving presentations including:

Application of the Upcoming SPDX Safety Profile – Nicole Pappler, AlektoMetis.com
Traceability and Automation Examples with Basil an Open Source Software for Quality Management – Luigi Pellecchia & Gabriele Paoloni, Red Hat
Enhancing Kernel Functional Safety Analysis with KS-nav – Alessandro Carminati & Gabriele Paoloni, Red Hat
Cross Industry Demands and Collaboration Opportunities in Open Source for Safety Critical Systems – Philipp Ahmann, Etas GmbH (Bosch) & Olivier Charrier, Wind River

Linux Plumbers Conference

The Linux Plumbers Conference will be held in Vienna, Austria from September 18-20, 2024. Several ELISA Project ambassadors will be on-site to in presentations and microconferences including:

Building for Safety in a Security and Feature Focused World on September 18 at 5 pm CET

In this talk, Chuck Wolber, Associate Technical Fellow at the Boeing Company, will succinctly describe the Open Source duality, the tension between build integrators and individual projects, the benefits of Safety Engineering’s approach to testing and design rigor, and lay out a vision and a roadmap for gaining the Open Source community’s confidence in the value of these techniques.

Real-Time Linux on September 19 at 3 pm CET

The real-time community around Linux has been responsible for important changes in the kernel over the last few decades. Preemptive mode, high-resolution timers, threaded IRQs, sleeping locks, tracing, deadline scheduling, and formal tracing analysis are integral parts of the kernel rooted in real-time efforts, mostly from the PREEMPT_RT patch set. The real-time and low latency properties of Linux have enabled a series of modern use cases, like low latency network communication with NFV and the use of Linux in safety-critical systems.

Kernel Testing & Dependability – September 20 at 10 am CET

The Kernel Testing & Dependability Micro-Conference (Testing MC) is dedicated to advancing Linux Kernel testing and infrastructure through collaborative efforts. By fostering connections and discussions on identified issues and potential solutions, the conference aims to enhance the predictability and trustworthiness of the kernel for diverse applications and products. Learn more.

The Tracing / Perf Events Microconference – September 20 at 10 am CET

The Tracing / Perf Events Microconference explores how tracing and perf events illuminate the complexities of the Linux kernel, enabling advanced debugging, feature development, and runtime verification. This year, the focus will also include the perf events mechanism, which presents performance counters and software events through both kernel and userland components. Learn more.

Safe Systems with Linux on September 20 at 3 pm CET

The Safe Systems with Linux Microconference tackles the challenge of ensuring security fixes in Linux distributions do not introduce regressions in safety-critical applications by improving the linkage between code, tests, and requirements. Issues in requirements tracking, documentation, and testing, emphasizing the need for formalized documentation of requirements and consistent test documentation within the kernel ecosystem will be discussed. Learn more.

Measuring and Understanding Linux Kernel Tests on September 20 at 12 pm CET

University of Illinois has been working on an LLVM-based toolchain for measuring test adequacy of existing kernel tests from test suites including KUnit, kselftest, LTP, test suites from RHEL and more in KCIDB. Learn more.

About the Linux Foundation

For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see its trademark usage page: www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Jun 26

Critical Software Summit 2024

By maemalynn Blog, Linux Foundation, News

The Open Source Summit Europe, which takes place on September 16-18 in Vienna, Austria, is packed with technical content. It is the premier event for open source developers, technologists, and community leaders to collaborate, share information, solve problems, and gain knowledge, furthering open source innovation and ensuring a sustainable open source ecosystem.

As a conference umbrella, Open Source Summit is composed of a collection of events covering the most important technologies, topics, and issues affecting open source today. The Critical Software Summit is one of those microconferences.

As open source is found more and more in safety-critical products and infrastructure, the need to ensure dependability and reliability has increased. This event gathers developers focused on solving these issues, to figure out how we can increase the confidence of using OS projects in safety, mission, and business-critical applications.

Several of ambassadors, contributors and leaders from the ELISA Project will be giving presentations on Monday, including:

Application of the Upcoming SPDX Safety Profile – Nicole Pappler, AlektoMetis.com

Creating and maintaining a safety critical project comes with a lot of challenges. A central issue is keeping your documentation, starting from planning and guideline documents, down to requirements, safety analysis, reviews and tests, consistent and up to date. These artefacts often have their own lifecycle and are natively managed in different tools, with usually great traceability capabilities regarding dependencies between these artefacts as long as you stay within one tool or within a (usually propriety) tool family of one single tool vendor. Currently the resulting traceability gaps between these tools are handled either by the popular engineering tools like MS Excel or methods like “search for identical names”, depending highly on manual maintenance.

Using SPDX relationships, the upcoming Safety Profile in SPDX 3.1 will provide a model to represent all these dependencies as a knowledge model that can be used both to analyse possible impacts after a change (be it because of a security update or functional variants of your product), provide evidence of completeness and compliance as a Safety SBOM or simply keep track of your product variants.

Traceability and Automation Examples With Basil an Open Source Software for Quality Management – Luigi Pellecchia & Gabriele Paoloni, Red Hat

In Safety Critical applications it is mandatory to ensure Sw Requirements traceability to Sw Specifications, Test Cases, Test Results, Bugs and more.
The process leading to this goal is usually complex and time-consuming and it is essential to understand the state step by step and highlight what remains to be done.
Moreover, for the intrinsic nature of a software project, we need to ensure traceability and test verification following any evolution in the ecosystem of the project.

BASIL The FuSa Spice, is an open source sw that provides a quality management solution aimed to address the above mentioned challenges for SW developments that are code driven and equally for the ones requirements driven.

We will see how to implement in BASIL Sw Requirements traceability to the source Code and to existing upstream Test Cases, how to execute them, how to navigate Test Results and artifacts and how to link failures to a bug in a bug tracking system.

We will also go into the details of a pipeline implementation based on the BASIL HTTP Api to understand how changes in one or more work items can be managed through automation with the goal of implementing a continuous certification framework.

Enhancing Kernel Functional Safety Analysis with KS-nav – Alessandro Carminati & Gabriele Paoloni, Red Hat

In order to make functional safety claims on SW components, having a clear understanding of the underlying software architecture is crucial. However, if SW architectural documentation is missing, understanding how software operates and how its parts fit together can be challenging. For the Linux kernel and many other OSS SW, such documents are absent and instead, analysts must rely on code, which can be hard to read.
ks-nav is a tool designed to help in reverse engineering and understanding the code by generating diagrams that highlight the interactions between code elements and sub-elements.

ks-nav relies on binary images instead of source code analysis to get rid of the uncertainty introduced by configurations, compiler optimizations, and any other toolchain related issues. Additionally, using the MAINTAINERS file, it precisely pinpoints subsystems, enabling users to delve into their interactions with clarity.

This session focuses on:
* Why understanding the code is critical in FuSa activities;
* How ks-nav works, how it addresses the various challenges of analyzing the code;
* An example of how ks-nav can be used to support an expert-driven FMEA for a specific use case.

Cross Industry Demands and Collaboration Opportunities in Open Source for Safety Critical Systems – Philipp Ahmann, Robert Bosch GmbH & Olivier Charrier, Wind River

The increasing computation power of embedded CPUs has revolutionized industries such as Automotive, Aerospace, or Industrial by enabling centralized and enhanced use cases, software-defined functionalities, and increased automation. The challenges of this increased complexity are often addressed by incorporating Open Source Software, particularly Linux, virtualization and RTOS. As these industries are heavily regulated by quality and safety-integrity standards, the certification of these highly complex systems becomes crucial.

Starting from the similarities and overlaps in system architecture design across use cases, this talk will explore the demands imposed by safety integrity standards in various industries. To develop these systems and adhere to required processes, the integration of tools and a high degree of automation is essential.

The authors show how Open Source projects bridge the gap between open source and safety-criticality, introducing tools and processes, and showcasing collaborative efforts in creating reproducible example system architectures. These systems can serve as a foundation for companies and projects adopting Open Source in safety-critical applications.

The full schedule for the Critical Software Summit Schedule can be viewed here. Register here to attend in-person. Virtual registration is not required to access the event live stream. All conference sessions will be live-streamed to the Linux Foundation YouTube channel with freely available access during the event. Live stream links for each session can be accessed from each session listing in the schedule. More information is coming soon.

Stay tuned by subscribing to the ELISA Project newsletter or connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn or mailing lists to talk with community and TSC members.

Jun 04

Canonical and EMQ join the Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA) Project to Strengthen their Commitment to Safety-Critical Applications in Automobiles

By maemalynn Announcement

SAN FRANCISCO – June 4, 2024 – Today, the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) Project announced that Canonical and EMQ have joined the project, marking their commitment to Linux and its effective use in safety-critical applications. Hosted by the Linux Foundation, ELISA is an open source initiative that aims to create a shared set of tools and processes to help companies build and certify Linux-based safety-critical applications and systems.Canonical is the publisher of Ubuntu, a provider of open source security, support and services. Their portfolio covers critical systems, from the smallest devices to the largest clouds, from the kernel to containers, from databases to AI.

“We at Canonical recognize that safety isn’t just a feature—it’s a necessity, especially in critical industries like automotive,” said Bertrand Boisseau, Automotive Sector Lead at Canonical. “By teaming up with ELISA, we aim to advance functional safety on Linux and automotive ISO standards requirements. Our dedication to quality, security, and safety aligns seamlessly with ELISA’s mission, and we’re excited to contribute our expertise to this initiative. This way, as vehicles become more sophisticated, they also become safer, benefiting not only the automotive industry but also the broader community.”

EMQ is a leading global provider in the MQTT-based Messaging Platform domain. Its flagship product, EMQX, is a robust and unified MQTT platform, serving as a foundational component for modern IoT solutions. It supports up to 100 million IoT device connections per cluster, boasts a throughput of up to 1 million messages per second, and ensures sub-millisecond latency. EMQX is trusted by over 20,000 enterprise users worldwide, connecting more than 200 million IoT devices, and catering to over 600 customers in critical IoT scenarios.

“We are thrilled to be an ELISA Project member,” says Jun Gu, Director of Community Engagement at EMQ. “By integrating our expertise in Connected Cars with ELISA’s mission, we aim to enhance the reliability and safety of Linux-based systems in industries where failure is not an option such as the Automotive Industry where we have already built solutions. This collaboration underscores our commitment to innovation and safety, ensuring that our solutions meet the highest standards of safety and security.”

Linux is used in all major industries because it can enable faster time to market for new features and take advantage of the quality of the code development processes. Launched in February 2019, ELISA works with Linux kernel and safety communities to agree on what should be considered when Linux is used in safety-critical systems. The project has several dedicated working groups that focus on providing resources for system integrators to apply and use to analyze qualitatively and quantitatively on their systems.

ELISA Project members include Premier members Boeing and Red Hat. Other members include, AISIN AW CO., Arm, Automotive Grade Linux, Bosch, Codethink, Elektrobit, Huawei Technologies, Linuxtronix, Nissan, SAIC Motor, SUSE, and Wind River.

ELISA Workshop

The ELISA Project hosts in-person workshops on a regular basis to gather the project members, contributors, and other partners in the ecosystem to advance collaboration, accelerate project progress, and plan for future goals. The workshop is being held at the Volvo Cars office in Lund, Sweden on June 4-5.

There will be presentations from Volvo, Red Hat, The Linux Foundation, NVIDIA, Modus Create/Tweag, SUSE, Canonical, Magna, Bosch, and leaders for some of ELISA’s Working Groups. Interested participants can register to attend this workshop virtually. Check out the agenda.

Linux Plumbers Conference

The Linux Plumbers Conference takes place in Vienna, Austria on September 18-20. The Call for Proposals for Referreed Track Presentations as well as content for Microconferences are currently open. There are several ELISA- related microconferences including Kernel Testing and Dependability, Tracing and Safe Systems with Linux, which is chaired by Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation, and Philipp Ahmann, ELISA Project Chair of the Technical Steering Committee and Technical Business Development Manager at Bosch. Submit topics through June 16. Learn more here.

Other resources include:

ELISA Seminar Series: This series, which is free to attend, focuses on hot topics related to the industry and ELISA’s mission. Speakers are members, contributors and thought leaders from the ELISA Project and surrounding communities. You can watch all videos on the ELISA Project Youtube Channel on the Seminar Series Playlist.

Safety-Critical Software Summit: The event was hosted in Seattle, Washington on April 16-18 co-located with Open Source Summit North America. Sponsored by ELISA, safety experts and open source developers gathered to enable and advance the use of open source in safety-critical applications. Watch the videos.

Member Support Quotes

“Red Hat is committed to actively fostering and contributing to upstream open source projects like ELISA. Since joining in July 2021 as a premium member, Red Hat has promoted tools and analysis aimed at encouraging the use of Linux in safety critical systems that sit at the heart of software-defined vehicles. From BASIL and ks-nav for tracing requirements and test specifications to helping drive internal design of the Linux Kernel code and more, Red Hat continues to collaborate with the open source ecosystem to fast-track Linux for automotive and other functional safety industry segments.” – Gabriele Paoloni, ELISA Governing Board Chair, Red Hat

For more information about ELISA, visit https://elisa.tech/.

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, OpenChain, OpenSSF, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, and more. The Linux Foundation focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

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Jan 10

ELISA Milestones & What’s next

By maemalynn Blog, Working Group

As Linux continues to be a key component in safety-related applications, Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (ELISA) is an open source project that aims to create a shared set of tools and processes to help companies build and certify Linux-based safetycritical applications and systems. Launched in February 2019, ELISA works with Linux kernel and safety communities to agree on what users should consider when using Linux in safety-critical systems.

In 2023, ELISA increased the technical resources created for the Linux community, including a Seminar Series of no-cost, on-demand videos that provide overviews of a special focus and project workshops for community members who are interested in advancing the milestones and goals of the project. The ELISA Seminar series hosted sessions that many organizations hosted, including Red Hat about an open source tool, tentatively named Basil, for tracing requirements, code, and tests; AMD about Xen safety certification; the Linux Foundation with AlektoMetis about automating adherence to safety profiles after fixing vulnerabilities; and the Boeing Company about DO-178C Level D certified Linux and NASA.

Two in-person workshops in Berlin and Munich brought together industry thought leaders and open source community members to discuss all safety-related issues, challenges, and next steps for the project. The project has several dedicated Working Groups (WGs) that provide resources for system integrators to apply and use to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze their systems:

Aerospace WG is busy surveying aerospace’s state of the art on using Linux and the associated certification approach and equivalent Design Assurance Level and identifying the challenges to adopting Linux in aerospace and candidate use cases using Linux.
Architecture WG is adopting the ks-nav tool set to implement and expand the STPA approach within the kernel.
Linux Features WG analyzed the potential and challenges of real-time safety-critical systems and presented their work at the Embedded Open Source Summit.
Medical Devices WG set out to discover the Linux kernel subsystems that OpenAPS used, shared key findings, and upstreamed the workload tracing guide.
Open Source Engineering Process WG documented how to apply a safety analysis process based on STPA suitable for Linux and other OSS use.
Systems WG shared the work on creating a reproducible example system consisting of Linux, Xen, and Zephyr on real hardware at the Linux Plumbers Conference.
Tools WG has enabled Continuous Integration.

To kick off the new year, ELISA Working Group leads will be giving an annual update next week. The updates will include the following topics:

A recap of milestones in 2023
Current focus and activities
What’s coming up in 2024 and areas and opportunities for collaboration
Onboarding resources and how to get involved

This is a great opportunity to get up to speed with what each of the Working Group is working on and how you can participate and contribute this year. For more details and to register to attend please click here: https://elisa.tech/event/working-group-annual-updates/.

Nov 21

Putting Linux into Context – Towards a reproducible example system with Linux, Zephyr & Xen

By maemalynn Ambassadors, Blog, Industry Conference

Last week, developers from around the world traveled to Richmond, Virginia for the annual Linux Plumbers Conference. Hosted at the Omni Richmond Hotel on November 13-15, the event was mostly in-person with a live-streaming element for those who couldn’t make it.

Philipp Ahmann, Product Manager for Embedded Open Source at Robert Bosch GmbH and Chair of the ELISA Project Technical Steering Committee (TSC), was at the event and gave presentation titled, “Putting Linux into Context – Towards a Reproducible Example System with Linux, Zephyr & Xen.” You can find his presentation video and PPT below:

Linux Plumbers Conference – ELISA Presentation Download

Demos on embedded systems using Linux are plentiful, but when it comes to reproducing them, things get complicated. Additionally, on decent embedded systems Linux is only one part of the system and interacts with real-time operating systems and virtualization solutions. This makes reproduction even harder.

Within the Linux Foundation’s ELISA project, we started to create a reproducible example system consisting of Linux, Xen, and Zephyr on real hardware. This is the next step after we achieved a reproducible system with a pure Linux qemu image.

The idea is to have documentation, a continuous integration including testing, which can be picked up by developers to derive and add their own software pieces. In this way they should be able to concentrate on their use case rather than spending effort in creating such a system (unless they explicitly want this). We also show how to build everything from scratch. The assumption is that only in this way it is possible to get a system understanding to replace elements towards their specific use cases.

We had challenges finding good hardware, tools, freely available GPU drivers and more and we are still not at the end. A good system SBOM is also creating additional challenges, although leveraging the Yocto build system has provided some advantages here.

While we are setting up the first hardware with documentation from source to build to deployment and testing on embedded hardware, we aim to have at least two sets of all major system elements like Linux flavor, a choice of virtualization technique, real-time OS and hardware. Only when software elements and hardware can be exchanged, we identify clear interfaces and make a system reproducible and adoptable.

Open Questions are:

What will be a good next hardware to extend this PoC scope?
Where do open source, security, safety, and compliance come best together?
Which alternative real-time operating systems and virtualization should be incorporated?

For more ELISA Project updates, subscribe to @ProjectElisa or our LinkedIn page or our Youtube Channel.

Nov 30

Bosch and XPENG Motors join the ELISA Project to Strengthen their Commitment to Safety-Critical Applications in Automobiles

By maemalynn Announcement, ELISA Summit, Industry Conference, News

SAN FRANCISCO – November 30, 2022 – Today, the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) Project announced that Robert Bosch GmbH and XPENG Motors have joined the project, marking its commitment to Linux and its effective use in safety-critical applications in connected cars. Hosted by the Linux Foundation, ELISA is an open source initiative that aims to create a shared set of tools and processes to help companies build and certify Linux-based safety-critical applications and systems.

Bosch is one of the world’s leading automotive suppliers. Bosch solutions combine automotive software know-how across all domains with expertise in electrical/electronic architecture of large integrated systems, complex real-time software, IoT, and automotive hardware. Their middleware offers functional safety, real-time behavior, and reliability under automotive requirements, combined with cyber-security. The Bosch experience and formal membership in ELISA fits well within the project goals and mission.

“Increasing product complexity and driving requirements in various areas of the software defined vehicle towards mixed-critical workloads requires thinking and going new ways to widen traditional approaches of systems engineering. Due to Bosch’s existing expertise in Linux and functional safety, the formal membership of Bosch within the ELISA project is a logical and consequent step,” said Philipp Ahmann, Business Development Manager – Embedded Open Source, Cross-Domain Computing Solutions at Robert Bosch GmbH. “The enthusiastic collaboration between functional safety experts combined with the recent excellent contributions from Linux experts are adding the value and momentum needed to enable Linux in safety applications and to make ELISA a success story.”

Earlier this month, Philipp Ahmann was nominated and elected as the new Chair of the ELISA Project Technical Steering Committee (TSC). He has been involved in the ELISA Project since May 2019 as an ambassador and member of the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) who has written blogs and given presentations in various Linux Foundation conferences and industry shows.

Philipp Ahmann steps into this role after TSC Chair Shuah Khan, Linux Fellow and Kernel Maintainer at The Linux Foundation, who has helped build the technical governance of the project and advance its mission and goals for more than two years. She will continue to contribute to the ELISA by helping Philipp Ahmann in his TSC role and supporting the working group leads.

“Philipp has made vast contributions during his time with the ELISA Project,” said Shuah Khan. “Since the day he joined the community, he’s been actively involved and has led the Automotive Working Group to real-world use cases like tell tales. His leadership will play an important role in setting up priorities and in providing guidance to the project. We are very excited about this next step in our evolution as an open source project setting the standard for safety-critical applications.”

ELISA is open to everyone. Anyone can develop and contribute code, get elected to the Technical Steering Committee, or help steer the project forward in any number of ways.

Developers who are elected to the Technical Steering Committee or who participate as project leaders will provide leadership regarding the technical direction.

XPENG Motors, a leading Chinese smart EV company with hubs in China, the United States, and Europe, was founded in 2014 with a belief that technology is bound to transform the future of mobility.

“We are a technology company at heart. By addressing the needs of our customers with our expertise, we can solve the complicated questions in unchartered territory,” said Yu Peng, Embedded Systems General Manager at XPENG Motors. “We recognize the crucial and diverse role mobility plays in people’s lives, and aspire to expand future mobility through intelligent revolution, from the road to the air.”

“We joined ELISA because we wanted to get more technology and experience in improving the functional safety and stability of Linux-based system software. Through communications and participation, we hope the ELISA Project helps us to make products safer and more reliable,” said Peng.

Other ELISA Project members include ADIT, AISIN AW CO., Arm, Automotive Grade Linux, Automotive Intelligence and Control of China, Banma, Boeing, BMW Car IT GmbH, Codethink, Elektrobit, Horizon Robotics, Huawei Technologies, Intel, Lotus Cars, Toyota, Kuka, Linuxtronix. Mentor, NVIDIA, SUSE, Suzuki, Wind River, OTH Regensburg, Toyota and ZTE.

ELISA Presentations

The ELISA Project will be represented at Open Source Summit Japan, hosted on December 5-6 in Yokohama, Japan, and virtually. Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at The Linux Foundation, will give a keynote address titled “Japan’s Critical Infrastructure – Open Source Evolution,” on Tuesday, December 6 that will feature ELISA and a few other open source projects. On Wednesday, December 7, there will be an ELISA Mini-Summit that will offer a deep dive into the mission of the project and activities of the various working groups. There is a $10 fee when adding the ELISA Summit to the Open Source Summit Japan registration. Learn more about the conference or register here.

ELISA Summit: Intro & Technical Strategy (Video)

By maemalynn Blog, ELISA Summit

An estimated 185 people registered for the ELISA Summit, which took place virtually on September 7-8 to gather Linux community members and attendees from around the world. The event, which featured 15 sessions and 20 speakers, was open to anyone involved or interested in defining, using, or learning about common elements, processes, and tools that can be incorporated into Linux-based, safety-critical systems amenable to safety certification. Members of the ELISA Project community, presented best practices and overviews on emerging trend and hot topics to using open source software in safety-critical applications and detailed working group updates.

We’ll be featuring event videos in blogs each week. Today, we focus on one of the most popular sessions presented by Kate Stewart, VP of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation, and Shuah Khan, Kernel Maintainer and Fellow at the Linux Foundation. They kicked off the Summit with a session titled, “Welcome & Strategy,” where they gave an overview of ELISA Project and its Technical Strategy. This video is an introductory session for new comers and ELISA members that aren’t regular participants in the Working Groups.

Watch the video below or check out the presentation materials here.

For more details about the ELISA Project, visit the main website here. To learn more about any of the working groups or to join the community, click here.

Other ELISA-related sessions include:

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