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Aug 24

Open Source Summit North America (Videos)

By maemalynn 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 maemalynn 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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Apr 20

ELISA Welcomes 3 Mentees!

By maemalynn Blog, Mentorship, Working Group

The Linux Foundation has had a robust mentorship program for years that invests in new talent and diversity that helps the open source community – no matter what the focus or project – thrive as a whole. Since its formal launch in 2019, the LFX Mentorship has graduated more than 190 mentees and has hosted almost 100 mentorship programs.

This Spring, the ELISA Project is hosting two mentorships that will help developers gain real-world knowledge in a hands-on learning experience with Linux and open source. It also provides a more defined path for ELISA to connect with the next generation to inject more talent into their developer base.

The Spring Mentorship session, which kicked off in March, paired mentees with leaders from Codethink, the Linux Foundation and Mobileye. The ELISA Project is excited to welcome Irenge Jules Bashizi, Shefali Sharma and Wenhui Zhang as the newest mentees in the ELISA community. Please see below for more details about their mentorships and mentors. As they settle into their new roles, we hope to feature their mentorship journey in upcoming blog posts.

Mentorship: Analysis of eBPF (extended Berkley Packet Filter) Verifier

To make eBPF programs “safe”, the Linux kernel validates all eBPF code before loading. However, the current validator has many known limitations, leading to rejection of working programs.

Focus in this mentorship will be:

In-depth analysis and review of the eBPF validator, and its use to validate eBPF programs.
Code enhancements to the validator to improve usability.
Identify use cases for kernel profiling in safety critical applications.

Mentor: Elana Copperman, Chair of the Linux Features for Safety-Critical Systems Working Group and System Safety Architect at Mobileye (part of Intel)

Elana provides support for designing safety features in Mobileye products, including system boot; drivers; and Linux infrastructure. Before working at Mobileye, she worked as a Security Architect for Cisco-Il (formerly NDS) and more recently as a security consultant for major European automotive concerns on behalf of various Israeli startups. Research interests focus on software engineering methodologies and security engineering.

In particular, focusing on expanding open source and Linux-based tools to support safety critical and life saving product development.

Mentee: Irenge Jules Bashizi

Jules is a Computer science student at University of Manchester. He is a certified Linux System administrator. Jules is interested in improving his skills in Kernel engineering by contributing to the Linux Kernel community by submitting patches. This internship offers him a unique opportunity tailored to improve and contribute. As a hobby, Jules enjoys jogging..

Mentee: Wenhui Zhang

Mentorship: Discovering Linux kernel subsystems used by OpenAPS

OpenAPS is an open source Artificial Pancreas System designed to automatically adjust an insulin pump’s insulin delivery to keep Blood Glucose in a safe range at all times. It is an open and transparent effort to make safe and effective basic Automatic Pancreas System technology widely available to anyone with compatible medical devices who is willing to build their own system.

What happens when an OpenAPS workload runs on Linux? What are the subsystems and modules that are in active use when OpenAPS is running? What are the interactions between OpenAPS and the kernel when a user checks how much insulin is left in the insulin pump?

The ELISA Medical Devices Working Group set out to answer these questions. Understanding the kernel footprint necessary to run a workload helps us focus on the subsystem and modules that make up the footprint for safety.

The mentee will:

Use Linux kernel tracing and strace tool to discover Linux kernel subsystems used by OpenAPS.
Find Linux system calls supported on various architectures.
Write a blog/whitepaper on the findings which will aid ELISA Medical Devices WG to focus on the subsystem and modules that make up the footprint for safety.

Shefali Sharma has started working on the project to advance the work Shuah and Milna have shared in their recent blog here.

Mentor: Milan Lakhani, Co-Chair of the Medical Devices Working Group and Systems and Software Engineer at Codethink

In open source, Milan’s contributions to Linux kernel are aimed at achieving ELISA project goals. Other than that, he has previously worked in the Trustable and community – mainly STPA analysis on design and writing requirements and tests and also some patches to help with making a webapp and porting.

There are a lot of aspects and opportunities to really learn through experience and take responsibility to make an impact on a highly approved, tested and growing Closed Loop Open-Source insulin delivery system that is really helping to reduce issues of people with type 1 diabetes. There should also be some variety in the tasks and the approach that the mentee can do. Milan is excited to share his skills and knowledge with STPA (our method of safety analysis for the system), the OpenAPS system and codebase (OpenAPS is the medical device itself) and Linux kernel.

Mentor: Shuah Khan, ELISA Project TSC Chair and Linux Foundation Fellow

Shuah is an experienced Linux Kernel developer, maintainer, and contributor. She has extensive experience in open source development, actively working across Linux Kernel sub-systems.

She currently maintains the Kernel Selftest, USB over IP, and cpupower tools. She is an active contributor to the Linux media sub-system.

Shuah has a passion for mentoring and educating the next generation. She loves mentoring and training engineers new to open source and helping them become committers and reviewers.

Mentee: Shefali Sharma

Shefali is a third year Computer Science Engineering student from Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology, Meerut, India. She likes to explore new technical domains. She is very excited to work on the OpenAPS project as it will give her an opportunity to use her technical skills for the welfare of others and to get involved in the Linux kernel community. Apart from this she is also interested in DevOps and Machine Learning.

Mar 23

The ELISA Project Strengthens its Focus on Automotive Use Cases with Expertise from New Members Automotive Intelligence and Control of China, LOTUS Cars and ZTE

By maemalynn Announcement, Workshop

Register for the ELISA Spring Workshop on April 5-7 to Learn More

SAN FRANCISCO – March 23, 2022 – Today, the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) Project, 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, announced a stronger ecosystem focused on automotive use cases with the addition of the Automotive Intelligence and Control of China (AICC), LOTUS Cars and ZTE.

“The ELISA ecosystem continues to grow globally with strong support from automakers across Asia and Europe,” Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at The Linux Foundation. “By leveraging the expertise of current and new ELISA Project members, we are defining the best practices for use of Linux in the automobiles of the future. “

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 by the Linux Foundation, ELISA works with Linux kernel and safety communities to agree on what should be considered when Linux is to be 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.

The Automotive Working Group discusses the conditions and prerequisites the automotive sector needs to integrate Linux into a safety critical system. The group, which includes collaboration from ADIT, Arm, Codethink, Evidence (a part of Huawei), Red Hat and Toyota, focuses on actual use cases from the Automotive domain to derive the technical requirements to the kernel as a basis for investigation within the Architecture Workgroup and to serve as a blueprint for actual projects in the future. There is also close collaboration with Automotive Grade Linux, which results in a meta-ELISA layer enhancing the instrument cluster demo for safety relevant parts. As leaders in the automotive industry, AICC, LOTUS Cars and ZTE will most likely join the Automotive Working Group.

New Global Automotive Expertise

As the industry’s leading ICV computing infrastructure company, AICC is committed to providing OEMs with intelligent vehicle computing platforms and digital bases for empowering them the differentiated application development ability. In November 2021, AICC released iVBB2.0 series products, which takes ICVOS as the core product, then develops ICVHW, ICVSEC, ICVEC, and other product units. Currently, iVBB2.0 has been delivered to many OEMs and achieved collaboration on cross-platform development, co-built SDV, multi-chip distributed deployment, data security policy deployment and car cloud collaborative computing.

“Becoming a member of the ELISA Project, is in line with the high real-time, high-security, and high-reliability commitment that AICC has always made,” said Dr. Jin Shang, CEO & CTO of AICC. “This will provide a guarantee for the mass production development of AICC’s ICV computing infrastructure platform from security and quality perspectives. Based on the elements, tools, and processes shared by ELISA, AICC will build safety-critical applications and systems relating to Linux requirements, leading to widely used and internationally influential products.”

LOTUS Cars, which was honored as “Manufacturer of the Year” at the News UK Motor Awards in 2021, is focused on the safety of intelligent driving. It is a world-famous manufacturer of sports cars and racing cars noted for their light weight and fine handling characteristics.

“Functional safety is critical to intelligent driving,” said Jie Deng, LOTUS Cars In-Vehicle Operating System Lead. “LOTUS focuses on ‘track-level intelligent drive‘ and is committed to ensuring that drivers stay away from risks through active redundancy of software and hardware. We are very excited to join the ELISA Project and work with industry experts to productize Linux-based safety-critical systems for more drivers to experience intelligent driving in a highly safe and fun way.”

ZTE Corporation is a global leader in telecommunications and information technology. Founded in 1985, the company has been committed to providing innovative technologies and integrated solutions for operators, government and consumers from over 160 countries. ZTE has established 11 state-of-the-art global R&D centers and 5 intelligent manufacturing bases.

Relying on key technologies and core capabilities in the communications field, ZTE Automotive Electronics is committed to becoming a digital vehicle infrastructure capability provider and an independent high-performance partner in China, facilitating the intelligent and networked development in the automobile field. ZTE has been dedicated to GoldenOS R&D for more than 20 years. On this basis, ZTE proposes the integrated automotive operating system solution of high-performance embedded Linux and high security microkernel OS/Hypervisor, covering all scenarios of intelligent vehicle control, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit and intelligent network connectivities.

These new members join ADIT, AISIN AW CO., Arm, Automotive Grade Linux, Banma, BMW Car IT GmbH, Codethink, Elektrobit, Horizon Robotics, Huawei Technologies, Intel, Toyota, Kuka, Linuxtronix. Mentor, NVIDIA, SUSE, Suzuki, Wind River, OTH Regensburg and Toyota.

The Spring Workshop

ELISA Project members will come together for its quarterly Spring Workshop on April 5-7 to learn about the latest developments, working group updates, share best practices and collaborate to drive rapid innovation across the industry. Hosted online, this workshop is free and open to the public. Details and registration information can be found here.

Workshop highlights include:

A keynote by Robert Martin, Senior Principal Engineer at MITRE Corporation, about “Software Supply Chain Integrity Transparency & Trustworthiness and Related Community Efforts.” The presentation will discuss the capabilities emerging across industry and government to assess and address the challenges to providing trustworthy software supplies with assurance of integrity and transparency to their composition, source, and veracity – the building blocks of software supply chains we can gain justifiable confidence in at scale and speed.
A session by Christopher Temple, Lead Safety & Reliability Systems Architect at Arm Germany GmbH, and Paul Albertella, Consultant at Codethink, about “Mixed-Criticality Processing on Linux.” This talk will help create a common understanding of mixed-criticality processing on Linux and the related problems, collect and discuss alternatives for addressing the problems.
A discussion led by Philipp Ahmann, Business Development Manager at Robert Bosch GmbH, about a new Industrial IoT (IIoT) Working Group within ELISA. The open forum will allow the community to discuss framing lightweight SOUP safety standards, but focusing on those touch points which are not fully covered by other use case driven working groups.

Speakers include thought leaders from ADIT GmbH, Arm, Bosch GmbH, Bytedance, Codethink, Huawei, Mobileye, The Linux Foundation, MITRE Corporation and Red Hat. Check out the schedule and register to attend the workshop today.

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

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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Feb 16

ELISA Spring 2022 Workshop

By maemalynn Blog, Workshop

Today, the ELISA Project is excited to announce the Spring 2022 Workshop will take place virtually on April 5-7 and has opened a Call for Proposals (CFP) as well as registration.

The ELISA Workshop series is focused on the exchange of ideas and feedback from the Linux kernel and Safety communities, as productive collaboration to make tangible progress toward achieving the mission and goals of the ELISA Project. The workshops also provide project and working group overviews for new community members who are interested in advancing topics relevant to functional safety and Linux applications.

Submit a CFP

To encourage open collaboration and stimulate discussions, we invite our members, developers, and industry experts to submit a speaking proposal by March 4. Submit a speaking proposal here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/elisa-workshop-spring/program/cfp/.

Register today

It is free to attend ELISA Workshops but we require registration. Register here.

Missed the November Workshop?

Philipp Ahmann, ELISA Project Ambassador and Technical Steering Committee member, recapped the successful event and highlighted a few of the sessions. You can read the blog or watch the videos here.

If you have any questions about the event, please reach out to events@elisa.tech.

Dec 20

ELISA Ambassador: Elana Copperman

By maemalynn Ambassador Spotlight, Ambassadors, Blog

ELISA Ambassadors are technical leaders who are passionate about the mission of the ELISA Project, recognized for their expertise in functional safety and linux kernel development, and willing to help others to learn about the community and how to contribute.

Each month, we’ll put a spotlight on an ELISA Ambassador. Today, we’re excited to highlight Elana Copperman, PhD, ELISA ambassador, Chair of the Linux Features for Safety-Critical Systems (LFSCS) Working Group and TSC voting member. Elana works as a System Safety Architect in Mobileye, an Intel company, designing features to support safety as well as security features in Mobileye vision products for the automotive domain.

Background Details:

As a System Safety Architect at Mobileye, Elana provides support for designing critical system features in Mobileye products, including system boot; drivers; and Linux infrastructure. Before working at Mobileye, she worked as a Security Architect for Cisco-Il (formerly NDS) and more recently as a security consultant for major European automotive concerns on behalf of various Israeli startups. Most recently, merging with safety constraints in the automotive domain, to deploy secure as well as safe systems. Her research interests focus on software engineering methodologies and security engineering.

Q&A

How long have you been active in open source?

I have been involved in “open source” before it was formalized as we know it today. During my time as an undergraduate student, online software source code was commonly shared as freeware. In fact, even early Unix versions were provided at no cost to academics, and collaborative efforts were supported to some degree.

My PhD research focused on Object-Oriented Programming, including some investigations on Java source code and features. Open source software development, Linux in particular, has evolved since then, including many new challenges and opportunities. For example, setting up and working with Apache Server over Linux OS in the early 1990’s.

Over the last 15 years, Linux has grown to what we know & love today, with its amazing powers. As a system architect, I have been designing systems that empower Linux in embedded systems, first in Set-Top Boxes (for digital broadcasting) and currently in Automotive.

Tell us about your favorite open source project and what problems did it aim to solve?

My favorite open source project focused on security code review with ST (chip vendor) engineers for the optee code, which had been released to Linaro. To see first-hand how open source aligns vendor, kernel and user requirements with features to resolve complex security challenges was mind-blowing.

How long have you been active in the ELISA Project?

I have been active in ELISA for more than 2 years, with active participation in each of the Workshops since joining. I have also presented talks related to Linux kernel features such as CRC pitfalls, eBPF verifier, isolation techniques, and kernel configurations related to safety.

What roles and/or working groups do you have or participate in?

I was the Chair of the Kernel Development Process Working Group, and am currently the new Linux Features for Safety-Critical Systems WG. I am learning from the safety experts on board, and my primary contribution is to represent the viewpoint of the application designers and developers who will build Linux-based safety critical systems.

Where do you see the ELISA Project in three years?

My dream for ELISA is to see a community of developers providing kernel modules which may be leveraged for use in safety critical systems. For example, a suite of memory protection mechanisms derived from well defined requirements that may be deployed to protect safety-critical data. Another example, which is in our planned agenda, are test suites for concurrency issues such as deadlock and race conditions, focusing on test plans derived from safety requirements.

What is the biggest strength of the ELISA community?

I think ELISA has matured since its early days and we are currently more structured in our analysis and goals. Our strength is in current efforts to progress and making real contributions to the Linux kernel community.

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

Never give up. Be flexible, adapt, adjust – but keep up the hard work.

What technology can you not live without? Why?

My home coffee machine. Drop in for a fresh cup and you will know why.

What part of the world do you live in? Why do you love where you live?

I live in Israel, a tiny multicultural nation at the junction of 3 continents (Europe, Asia, Africa). It has also become a major highway for birds – and a pilgrimage site for bird watchers. A wide variety of species can be viewed making their way south in the fall and back north in the spring. Thomas Krumenacker (German journalist and photographer) wrote a book on “Birds in the Holy Land”.

Now is a great time of year to take a trip to the Hula Valley Nature Reserve, to get a view of some of the estimated 500 million migrating birds passing over the Hula Valley and stopping by for a drink of water. This exemplifies the amazing diversity of the people and wildlife of our small fast-paced country.

What’s your favorite quote?

3 Fun facts:

My first computer was a PCJr, with 64 Kb of memory, and with virtually no hardware or software. I had to install all my own hardware add-ons and get it to work, including etching bit maps for the Hebrew alphabet in memory and getting it to work from right to left. After adding more and more components to the motherboard, one day it blew up. But I had a lot of fun with it until that happened.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IBM_PCB_Jr_Internal.jpg*

As a grad student at NYU, we had loads of fun playing with early internet protocols and collaboration tools, including gopher and kermit; getting our hands dirty (“finger”) working with each other’s systems; and Mosaic (an early Web browser). The crazy things we did over the internet taught me a lot about potential security issues related to networking. This expertise was the foundation for my more recent work in security and safety engineering.

As chair of the Computer Department at the Jerusalem College, we aimed high but with a low budget. Trying to keep up to date with educational (i.e., no support or documentation) versions of closed source software was a real challenge. I became adept at finding contacts working with major software vendors who were willing to break down the walls, expose the source code and support my customization for our needs. In a sense, challenging proprietary software in open-source development mode …

To learn more about ELISA ambassadors, please click here.

Nov 11

Open Source Summit (Sept 2021) Video: A Maintainable, Scalable, and Verifiable SW Qualification Approach for Automotive in Linux

By maemalynn Blog, Industry Conference

Open Source Summit and Embedded Linux Conference, held in Seattle, Washington as well as virtually on September 27-30, gathered 1,944 total attendees. Approximately, 482 of those attended in person from 760 organizations across 68 countries around the globe. Learn more about the event in the post-event report here.

The ELISA Project was represented by Gabriele Paoloni, Chair of the ELISA Project Governing Board and Open Source Tech Lead (Functional Safety) at Red Hat, and Daniel Bristot de Oliveira, a member of the ELISA community and Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat. Gab and Daniel presented a talk about how to create a maintainable, scalable and verifiable SW qualification approach for automotive in linux. Watch the video below.

Over the last years, many discussions took place in Linux Foundation’s ELISA Working Groups about possible approaches to qualify Linux for safety-critical systems. To achieve this goal, an architectural description of the Linux kernel is required.

The challenge though is to find the adequate granularity for description: It must be precise enough to support safety analyses, but it cannot be too fine-grained to the point of being unmanageable. A promising approach is to leverage the ISO26262-6 and ISO26262-8 together, in a hierarchical incremental approach. Optimizing the amount of produced documentation and collaterals.

In this video, the foundations of this approach were presented. Gab and Daniel showcase why this approach is suitable for safety application as well as out-of-context using assuming safety requirements and why it provides natural scalability across different use-cases. Finally, considerations will be made with respect to available tools and mechanisms already implemented or proposed in Linux that can significantly help with the above-mentioned approach – including a detailed discussion about how to cross verify, and monitor, the documentation and the kernel using the Runtime Verification subsystem.

Oct 27

Welcome Jeffrey Osier-Mixon and John MacGregor as new ELISA Ambassadors!

By maemalynn Ambassadors, Announcement, Blog

Today, we announce two new ambassadors – Jeffrey Osier-Mixon, Principal Community Architect at Red Hat, and John MacGregor, a thought leader with several decades of experience in software technology. Learn more about Jeffrey and John below.

Jeffrey “Jefro” Osier-Mixon:

Jefro currently focuses on automotive efforts. As a community architect, Jefro is responsible for maintaining Red Hat’s relationship with automotive-oriented communities, and he acts as the current chair for the CentOS Automotive Special Interest Group.Jefro has worked in open source for nearly three decades, having started his career as a technical writer with Cygnus Support working on documentation for the GNU tools. He has worked with Wind River and Montavista/Cavium Networks on embedded operating systems, and spent five years at Transmeta. He switched careers in 2011 and went to Intel to serve as the community and program manager for the Yocto Project, where he was the board chair for 7 years. During that time, he also helped launch Zephyr and Project ACRN. Most recently, he spent two years at the Linux Foundation as a program manager for RISC-V International and LF Energy.Jefro has been on the program committee for the Embedded Linux Conference series since 2010, and he speaks regularly at open source conferences. It’s best to catch him after the coffee kicks in.

John MacGregor:

John is currently spicing up his retirement by participating in various ELISA working groups. He started his long career as a scientific programmer, switched to Unix programmer and system architect, then progressed to project manager in telecommunications. He worked for several decades as Senior Expert for Software Technology in the Corporate Research Division of Robert Bosch GmbH. Among other things, he worked on software process improvement, software reuse, automotive software architecture and IoT technologies. Before retiring, John participated in the SIL2LinuxMP project, which focused on certifying Linux under IEC 61508 at the SIL2 level, and then continued to contribute to the ELISA project.

John holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, specializing in operations research and information systems, as well as an MBA, specializing in marketing and finance.

Learn more about other ELISA Ambassadors here: https://elisa.tech/community/ambassadors/ Or, if you’re currently participating in the project and would like to become an ambassador, you can apply here.

Oct 21

ELISA Working Groups

By maemalynn Blog, Working Group, Workshop

Since launch in February 2019, the ELISA Project has created several working groups that collaborate and work towards providing resources for System integrators to apply and use to analyze qualitatively and quantitatively on their systems. Current groups include an Automotive Working Group, Medical Devices Working Group, Safety Architecture Working Group and Tool Investigation and Code Improvement Sub-Working Group to focus on specific activities and goals.

If you’re interested in learning more about the goals and objectives for these working groups or asking questions, we invite you to the ELISA Workshop on November 8-10. The virtual workshop, which is free to attend, will host speakers from Arm, Codethink, Elektrobit Automotive GmbH, Evidence Srl, Google, Intel, Mobileye, The Linux Foundation, Red Hat and UL LLC.

On Monday, November 8 at 5-6 am PDT, the working group chairs will provide updates on all activities. Led by Gabriele Paoloni, Lukas Bulwahn, Kate Stewart, Shuah Khan, Milan Lakhani, Jason Smith, Jochen Kall and Philipp Ahmann, you can add this to your schedule here.

Additionally, we also recently announced two more working groups:

Open Source Engineering Process Working Group: This working group aims to examine safety-related claims that we might like to make about Linux as part of a system, and to explore how we can gather and present evidence to support such claims.

Linux Features for Safety-Critical Systems Working Group: This working group will work to bring together kernel developers and producers of safety critical systems to demonstrate use of such features in real systems, and to learn from these experiences together as a community.

If you want to learn more about these two new working groups, we invite you to the session on November 8 at 6-630 am PDT lead by Paul Albertella and Elana Copperman. Add this to your schedule here.

To register or to review the complete schedule, click here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/elisa-workshop/program/schedule/.

Oct 20

The ELISA Project Continues to Grow its Global Ecosystem by Welcoming Red Hat as a Premier Member and Banma, Lotus Cars and SUSE

By maemalynn Announcement, News, Working Group, Workshop

Schedule for the ELISA Fall Workshop on November 8-10 is now live

SAN FRANCISCO – October 20, 2021 – Today, the ELISA (Enabling Linux in Safety Applications) Project, 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, announced that Red Hat has upgraded its membership to premier member and welcomes Banma, Lotus Cars and SUSE as the newest members.

“Linux underpins many applications today that have safety-critical and cybersecurity implications,” said Kate Stewart, Vice President of Dependable Embedded Systems at The Linux Foundation. “By collaborating together, the ELISA members are defining the best practices for use of Linux in these systems. We look forward to continuing to build consensus and welcoming expertise and collaboration from these new members.”

Attend the Fall Workshop

Since its inception, ELISA has hosted quarterly workshops that bring together project members and community contributors to discuss working group updates, trends in functional safety, use cases and more. The next workshop will be held virtually on November 8-10 and is free to attend. Speakers include thought leaders from Arm, Codethink, Elektrobit Automotive GmbH, Evidence Srl, Google, Intel, Mobileye, The Linux Foundation, Red Hat and UL LLC. Register and check out the schedule: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/elisa-workshop/.

Join the New Working Groups

Since launch, the project has worked to establish a governance model that creates processes and guidance to the focused working groups that aim to provide resources for System integrators to apply and use to analyze qualitatively and quantitatively on their systems. Today, ELISA announces two new working groups:

Open Source Engineering Process Working Group: This working group aims to examine safety-related claims that we might like to make about Linux as part of a system, and to explore how we can gather and present evidence to support such claims.

Linux Features for Safety-Critical Systems Working Group: This working group will work to bring together kernel developers and producers of safety critical systems to demonstrate use of such features in real systems, and to learn from these experiences together as a community. Learn more about this new working group in this November Workshop session.

Learn more about the Global Ecosystem

Red Hat, which is known for its leadership in linux and open source, joined ELISA earlier this year and has been very active in the technical community. With their upgraded membership to Premier, Red Hat welcomes Gabriele Paoloni, Open Source Community Technical Leader at Red Hat, as the ELISA Project Governing Board Chair.

“Red Hat announced our intent to expand our expertise in Linux to safety-critical automotive use cases earlier this year as we work to develop a Linux in-vehicle operating system,” said Francis Chow, vice president, In-Vehicle Operating System, Red Hat. “As such, we’re pleased to extend our participation in ELISA as a Premier member and collaborate with other industry leaders in building up open source software for applications that require extremely high levels of trust and functional safety. We believe a standardized common set of tools and processes can drive innovation toward the software-defined vehicle. ”

Additionally, ELISA welcomes Banma, a Chinese startup specializing in automotive software; Lotus Cars, a leader in automotive manufacturing in China; and SUSE, a global leader in open source software specializing in enterprise Linux, Kubernetes management, and edge solutions. These new members join ADIT, AISIN AW CO., arm, Automotive Grade Linux, BMW Car IT GmbH, Codethink, Elektrobit, Horizon Robotics, Huawei Technologies, Intel, Toyota, Kuka, Linuxtronix. Mentor, NVIDIA, Suzuki, Wind River, OTH Regensburg and Toyota.

“Compared with other open software, safety is the key differentiation of automotive OS”, said Sean Xiao, Chief Architect at Banma. “The mission of Banma is to help automotive makers deliver intelligent cars by offering advanced vehicle open software. The ELISA Project combines safety and linux, which offers flexibility and openness, and closely aligns with our goals.”

“For nearly 30 years, SUSE has been a trusted partner supporting systems and essential workloads in some of the most challenging and critical industries in terms of safety requirements, such as automotive and transportation, government, aerospace and defense, industrial and manufacturing, and healthcare,” said Ivo Totev, SUSE COO. “We already collaborate with current ELISA members on important initiatives and are pleased to join ELISA as a formal member to continue to provide innovation in safety-critical domains.”

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

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