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Oct 30

A recap of Open Source Summit Europe (Vienna)

By 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.

Related content:

Sep 15

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 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:   

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:

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Jun 26

Critical Software Summit 2024

By 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:

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.

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.

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.

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 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:

  • 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
Photo by Tumisu

ELISA Milestones & What’s next

By 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 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 PresentationDownload

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 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.”

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 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.

Other presentations this year include:

  • ELISA Summit – Hosted virtually on September 7-8, this event included speakers from Aptiv Services Deutschland GmbH, Boeing, CodeThink, The Linux Foundation, Mobileye, Red Hat and Robert Bosch GmbH. Watch the videos here.
  • Open Source Summit Europe – Hosted in-person in Dublin on September 13-16, ELISA had two dedicated presentations about enabling safety in safety-critical applications and safety and open source software. Watch the videos here.

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

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 3,000 members. 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, Hyperledger, RISC-V, PyTorch, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology 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.

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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.

Oct 07

ELISA Summit: Intro & Technical Strategy (Video)

By 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.

Aug 24

Open Source Summit North America (Videos)

By Blog, Industry Conference, Working Group

This year, Open Source Summit North America was held as an umbrella conference, composed of a collection of 14 events covering the most important technologies, topics, and issues affecting open source today in June. There were a total of 2,771 attendees with 1,286 of those attending in person in Austin, from 1,041 organizations across 68 countries around the globe. The event attracted a diversified mix of open source community members from across the ecosystem. 54% of attendees were in technical positions, and developers comprised more than a quarter of attendees. You can read the post-event report here. You can also view all of the event playlists on the Linux Foundation Youtube Channel.

The ELISA Project was featured in several sessions and represented by ambassadors and community members at the conference. If you missed these presentations, you can watch the videos below:

Enabling Linux in Safety Applications (panel discussion) – Gabriele Paoloni, Red Hat (ELISA board chair) Kate Stewart, Linux Foundation (ELISA Executive Director) Paul Albertella, CodeThink (Open Source Engineering Process) Elana Copperman, Intel (Linux Features) Philipp Ahmann, Bosch GmbH (Automotive) Milan Lakhani, Codethink (Medical Devices) 

Meeting business and safety objectives while building safety critical applications is a huge challenge for any industry, particularly those who have not had previous experience with open source and Linux. ELISA’s charter is to help industries navigate technical and non-technical challenges in order to bring the benefits of open source to safety applications and help organizations provide the rigor needed for certification. This panel features ELISA working group leads who will share their vision of making Linux a prominent player for FuSa applications in several industries. Join us to learn more about the project and how you can contribute to the community’s overall success.

Finding the Path from Embedded to Edge using Product Lines – Steffen Evers, Bosch.IO & Philipp Ahmann, Robert Bosch GmBH

Linux is used for many embedded device classes today. However, it is increasingly desirable to connect these devices with each other and with the cloud. Embedded container technology can be used to make this easier by merging server/cloud and embedded technologies. However, it also leads to more challenges e.g. in respect to security, safety, traceability, and SBOMs. Using Linux across multiple device classes and product lines, and adding cloud technology, causes the complexity and efforts to explode.

In this talk, we describe how Bosch, and others, use embedded containers and “reference systems” to avoid redundant work and get a large number of embedded projects under control.

A reference system is an adjustable compilation of tools along with a pre-configured bundle of packages for a common use case and defined set of devices. This reuse significantly reduces development and maintenance costs, and speeds up the time to market. In this way, reference systems can form the base for your product lines.

Bosch uses the in-house Debian-based embedded distribution “Apertis” as the basis for several reference systems, e.g. for automotive infotainment systems. In doing so we push as many efforts as possible from individual projects into Apertis, as the meta-layer. Thereby, the users can focus more on the actual functionality and applications. e.g. one issue that we have addressed in the context of software management is the handling of GPLv3 in embedded devices. Another topic has been mainline support for kernel drivers.

BOF: SBOMs for Embedded Systems: What’s Working? What’s Not? – Kate Stewart

With the recent focus on improving Cybersecurity in IoT & Embedded, the expectation that a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) can be produced, is becoming the norm. Having a clear understanding of the software running on an embedded system, especially in safety critical applications,  like medical devices, energy infrastructure, etc. has become essential.  Regulatory authorities have recognized this and are starting to expect it as a condition for engagement.  This BOF will provide an overview of the emerging regulatory landscape, as well as examples of how SBOMs are already being generated today for embedded systems by open source projects such as Zephyr, Yocto and others,  followed by a discussion of the gaps folks are seeing in practice, and ways we might tackle them.

Static Partitioning with Xen, LinuxRT, and Zephyr: A Concrete End-to-end Example – Stefano Stabellini, AMD

Static partitioning enables multiple domains to run alongside each other with no interference. They could be running Linux, an RTOS, or another OS, and all of them have direct access to different portions of the SoC. In the last five years, the Xen community introduced several new features to make Xen-based static partitioning possible. Dom0less to start multiple static domains in parallel at boot, and Cache Coloring to minimize cache interference effects are among them. Static inter-domain communications mechanisms were introduced this year, while “ImageBuilder” has been making system-wide configurations easier. An easy-to-use complete solution is within our grasp. This talk will show the progress made on Xen static partitioning. The audience will learn to configure a realistic reference design with multiple partitions: a LinuxRT partition, a Zephyr partition, and a larger Linux partition. The presentation will show how to set up communication channels and direct hardware access for the domains. It will explain how to measure interrupt latency and use cache coloring to zero cache interference effects. The talk will include a live demo of the reference design.

RTLA: Real-time Linux Analysis Toolset – Daniel Bristot De Oliveira, Red Hat

Currently, Real-time Linux is evaluated using a black-box approach. While the black-box method provides an overview of the system, it fails to provide a root cause analysis for unexpected values. Developers have to use kernel trace features to debug these cases, requiring extensive knowledge about the system and fastidious tracing setup and breakdown. Such analysis will be even more impactful after the PREEMPT_RT merge. To support these cases, since version 5.17, the Linux kernel includes a new tool named rtla, which stands for Real-time Linux Analysis. The rtla is a meta-tool that consists of a set of commands that aims to analyze the real-time properties of Linux. Instead of testing Linux as a black box, rtla leverages kernel tracing capabilities to provide precise information about latencies and root causes of unexpected results. In this talk, Daniel will present two tools provided by rtla. The timerlat tool to measure IRQ and thread latency for interrupt-driven applications and the osnoise tool to evaluate the ability of Linux to isolate workload from the interferences from the rest of the system. The presentation includes examples of how to use the tool to find the root cause analysis and collect extra tracing information directly from the tool.

Aug 11

Boeing joins the ELISA Project as a Premier Member to Strengthen its Commitment to Safety-Critical Applications

By Announcement, News, Working Group, Workshop

Boeing to lead New Aerospace Working Group

SAN FRANCISCO – August 11, 2022 –  Today, the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) Project announced that Boeing has joined as a Premier member, marking 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.

“Boeing is modernizing software to accelerate innovation and provide greater value to our customers,” said Jinnah Hosein, Vice President of Software Engineering at the Boeing Company. “The demand for safe and secure software requires rapid iteration, integration, and validation. Standardizing around open source products enhanced for safety-critical avionics applications is a key aspect of our adoption of state-of-the-art techniques and processes.”

As a leading global aerospace company, Boeing develops, manufactures and services commercial airplanes, defense products, and space systems for customers in more than 150 countries. It’s already using Linux in current avionics systems, including commercial systems certified to DO-178C Design Assurance Level D. Joining the ELISA Project will help pursue the vision for generational change in software development at Boeing. Additionally, Boeing will work with the ELISA Technical Steering Committee (TSC) to launch a new Aerospace Working Group that will work in parallel with the other working groups like automotive, medical devices, and others.

“We want to improve industry-standard tools related to certification and assurance artifacts in order to standardize improvements and contribute new features back to the open source community. We hope to leverage open source tooling (such as a cloud-based DevSecOps software factory) and industry standards to build world class software and provide an environment that attracts industry leaders to drive cultural change at Boeing,” said Hosein.

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.

“Linux has a history of being a reliable and stable development platform that advances innovation for a wide range of industries,” said Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation. “With Boeing’s membership, ELISA will start a new focus in the aerospace industry, which is already using Linux in selected applications. We look forward to working with Boeing and others in the aerospace sector, to build up best practices for working with Linux in this space.”

Other ELISA Project members include ADIT, AISIN AW CO., Arm, Automotive Grade Linux, Automotive Intelligence and Control of China, Banma, 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.

Upcoming ELISA Events

The ELISA Project has several upcoming events for the community to learn more or to get involved including:

  • ELISA Summit – Hosted virtually for participants around the world on September 7-8, this event will feature overview of the project, the mission and goals for each working group and an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and network with ELISA leaders. The schedule is now live and includes speakers from Aptiv Services Deutschland GmbH, Boeing, CodeThink, The Linux Foundation, Mobileye, Red Hat and Robert Bosch GmbH. Check out the schedule here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/elisa-summit/program/schedule/. Registration is free and open to the public. https://elisa.tech/event/elisa-summit-virtual/
  • ELISA Forum – Hosted in-person in Dublin, Ireland, on September 12, this event takes place the day before Open Source Summit Europe begins. It will feature an update on all of the working groups, an interactive System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) use case and an Ask Me Anything session.  Pre-registration is required. To register for ELISA Forum, add it to your Open Source Summit Europe registration.
  • Open Source Summit Europe – Hosted in-person in Dublin and virtually on September 13-16, ELISA will have two dedicated presentations about enabling safety in safety-critical applications and safety and open source software. Learn more.

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

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 2,950 members. 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, Hyperledger, RISC-V, and more. The Linux Foundation’s methodology 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.

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