Safety-Critical Software Summit

Last month, the ELISA Project members had the exciting opportunity to attend and speak at both the Open Source Summit Europe and the Linux Plumbers Convention. During these events, we engaged with fellow speakers by asking a series of thought-provoking questions to uncover their insights and experiences within the open source community. Here’s what we found out: from the challenges they faced in their projects to the unique ways they foster collaboration and innovation, the responses painted a vibrant picture of the passion and dedication driving our community forward.

ELISA Project member Alessandro Carminati from Red Hat presented his session, “Addressing Duplicated Symbol Names in kallsyms: Introducing kas_alias for Symbol Differentiation,” at the Linux Plumbers Convention for the first time and also attended the Open Source Summit Europe. He shared, “Both conferences were memorable to me as they were my first experiences at such events.” These events provided valuable opportunities for individuals in the open source community to connect and engage with one another. Alessandro noted, “The networking at Plumbers was extraordinary. Suddenly, all the names I had been seeing on mailing lists became real people. While this might be expected for most, it really amazed me.”

To learn more about Alessandro Carminati and the ELISA Project, we invite you to explore our ongoing initiatives and community engagements. The insights gained from the Open Source Summit Europe and the Linux Plumbers Convention will undoubtedly shape our future collaborations and projects. As we continue to foster connections and share knowledge within the open source community, we remain committed to empowering individuals and driving innovation together. Stay tuned for more updates and opportunities to engage with us as we build a stronger, more inclusive ecosystem for everyone involved.

Incase you missed other ELISA Project sessions from OSS Europe, you can watch all of the session here:

• Application of the Upcoming SPDX Safety Profile – Nicole Pappler, AlektoMetis.com
• Traceability and Automation Examples With Basil an Open Source Software for Quality Management – Luigi Pellecchia & Gabriele Paoloni, Red Hat
• Enhancing Kernel Functional Safety Analysis with KS-nav – Alessandro Carminati & Gabriele Paoloni, Red Hat
• Cross Industry Demands and Collaboration Opportunities in Open Source for Safety Critical Systems – Philipp Ahmann, Robert Bosch GmbH & Olivier Charrier, Wind River
• Bridging the Gap: Incorporate OpenSource In Product Managers Toolbox – Philipp Ahmann, Robert Bosch

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.

The Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS) serves as a pivotal event for the open source embedded projects and developer communities. This umbrella event brings together various micro conferences, including the Embedded Linux Conference, Zephyr Developer Summit, and Safety-Critical Software Summit, offering a comprehensive platform for collaboration, discussions, and education. If you missed the Safety-Critical Software Summit, you can watch the videos on the ELISA Project Youtube Channel here. 

This session titled, “Measuring Code Coverage of the Linux Kernel in Accordance with RTCA DO-178C Considerations,” focuses on the code coverage requirements of RTCA DO-178C and how Boeing plans to meet them using the open-source LLVM coverage tools to measure the Linux kernel. Boeing is working to use Linux in numerous safety-critical avionics applications, which involves assuring the software in accordance with DO-178C considerations. Among these considerations are requirements on code coverage, which vary depending on the criticality of the system. These requirements will be discussed, accompanied by code examples to help illustrate what must be measured. Collaborating with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), llvm-cov was selected as the tool to collect coverage data. The speaker, Andrew Oppelt, is a Real-Time Software Engineer at The Boeing Company, focusing on real-time and safety-critical applications.

However, as it stands today, llvm-cov cannot generate the data needed to meet DO-178C requirements. Boeing is working with UIUC and the open-source community to enhance llvm-cov to meet its certification needs. Currently, llvm-cov supports statement and decision coverage, with an open merge request for modified condition/decision coverage (MC/DC). In addition to these existing features, object code coverage and design coupling and control coupling (DCCC) are necessary to fulfill DO-178C objectives.

Find about more about the Linux Kernel here.

The Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS) serves as a pivotal event for the open source embedded projects and developer communities. This umbrella event brings together various micro conferences, including the Embedded Linux Conference, Zephyr Developer Summit, and Safety-Critical Software Summit, offering a comprehensive platform for collaboration, discussions, and education.

Among these, the Safety-Critical Software Summit stood out with significant attendance. Held under the EOSS, the summit drew more than 860 participants, with 79% holding technical positions. This high level of engagement underscores the importance of safety-critical software in the embedded systems landscape and the ultimate goal of advancing secure and reliable solutions through open source collaboration.

As part of the Safety-Critical Software Summit, Luigi Pellecchia, Senior Software Quality Engineer  & Gabriele Paoloni, Sr SW Principal Engineer from Red Hat presented about “BASIL: The FuSa Spice,” which is an open source tool that facilitates software quality management by supporting traceability and completeness in analysis, including management of requirements and test cases. Developed by Red Hat and introduced to the ELISA Project community in June 2023, it was released as open source on GitHub in October 2023. If you missed this session, you can join them in Vienna on Monday September 16th at 12:15. Luigi and Gabriele will be on sire at OSSummit Europe with an updated version. tune into the updates coming this month for OSSummit Europe. Learn more: https://sched.co/1ejIi

To see all of the videos from the Summit, visit the ELISA Youtube Channel and click on the Safety-Critical Software Summit Playlist. 

Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS) is an umbrella event for open source embedded projects and developer communities to come together under one roof for important collaboration, discussions and education.  The event is composed of different  micro conferences including Embedded Linux Conference, Zephyr Developer Summit, and Safety-Critical Software Summit.

The Safety-Critical Software Summit took place under the Embedded Open Source Summit, where more than 860 individuals attended in-person at the event with 79% holding technical positions.

At the Safety-Critical Software Summit, Chuck Wolber, Associate Technical Fellow at The Boeing Company, gave a presentation titled, “The Limits of Safety Engineering and the Cinderblock Problem.”

This presentation uses practical examples to teach developers how to think about software in a safety critical context. It identifies the limitations of safety engineering and give developers a conceptual foundation for working within those constraints. At the heart of these limitations is the introduction of the “Cinderblock Problem.” Chuck uses this problem as a proposed shorthand for expressing the limitations of safety engineering in the context of software design and development.

To see all of the videos from the Summit, visit the ELISA Youtube Channel and click on the Safety-Critical Software Summit Playlist. 

Dylan Dawson, Head of Partner Management at Elektrobit Automotive GmbH, gave a presentation about “Aligning Automotive Standards with Open Source Excellence,” at The Safety-Critical Software Summit, which took place on April 16-18 in Seattle, Washington. 

Free and open-source software (FOSS), particularly Linux, is gaining traction in automotive embedded solutions and High-Performance Computing Platforms due to its advantages over proprietary alternatives. However, assuming liability for FOSS-based issues presents challenges in software quality assurance and risk control. The automotive industry, relying on the ASPICE maturity model and safety standards for assessment, faces a mismatch with the decentralized nature of FOSS development, driven by community contributions. FOSS’s decentralized quality assurance measures make single-entity regulation impractical, compounded by the extensive Linux code base, rendering low-level ASPICE Process Reference Model processes economically infeasible.

This presentation proposes a tailored approach incorporating ASPICE with compensation measures for FOSS specifics. This aims to achieve quality assurance and risk mitigation goals, enabling assessment through the ASPICE Process Assessment Model and adherence to functional safety standards. The video details these strategies, emphasizing a nuanced approach harmonizing FOSS principles with industry standards for reliability and safety in automotive computing. Watch here: 

 

The Safety-Critical Software Summit took place under the Embedded Open Source Summit, where more than 860 individuals attended in-person at the event with 79% holding technical positions. To see all of the videos from Summit, visit the ELISA Youtube Channel and click on the Safety-Critical Software Summit Playlist. 

Learn more about the ELISA Project by:

• Joining a Working Group
• Following us on X at @ProjectElisa
• Connecting with our LinkedIn page
• Subscribing to our Youtube Channel

The Linux Foundation hosted the Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS), a new umbrella event for open source embedded projects and developer communities to come together under one roof for important collaboration and education, in Prague, Czech Republic, on June 27-30. More than 1,300 people registered for the conference – representing 375 organizations across 56 countries around the globe.

EOSS hosted the Safety-Critical Software Summit, which was sponsored by the ELISA Project, that gathered safety experts and open source developers to enable and advance the use of open source in safety-critical applications. As part of the Summit, Philipp Ahmann, Technical Business Development Manager at Robert Bosch GmbH and Chair of the ELISA Project TSC, presented a session titled, “ELISA Status and Outlook: Advancing Open Source Safety-Critical Systems.”

These days, open source software can be found in almost every reasonably complex product running software. It runs in medical devices, robots, vehicles, and even outer space. In the underlying industry sectors, certification and safety integrity standards play an important role which at first glance seem at odds with the use of pre-existing open source software, not developed strictly in accordance with industry standards.

In this video, recent ELISA project deliverables in the field of elements, processes, and tools are highlighted. These include system theoretic process analysis, workload tracing, call-tree visualization on kernel level, and reproducible example use-cases from the field of medical devices and automotive. Their role in reducing the burden for companies to build and certify open source based safety-critical applications is shown. Additionally, an overview of upcoming ELISA activities in 2023 is provide and how cross project collaboration is established, as the ELISA work streams include interaction with e.g. the Zephyr, Xen, AGL, yocto, and SPDX community. A few statements on the overall challenges of safety-critical use cases using free open-source software will help to pick up those audience which is new to safety-critical or open source development. 

 

 

 

Click here for the presentation slides. Click here to view the other videos from the Safety-Critical Software Summit.

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

The Linux Foundation hosted the Embedded Open Source Summit (EOSS), a new umbrella event for open source embedded projects and developer communities to come together under one roof for important collaboration and education, in Prague, Czech Republic, on June 27-30. More than 1,300 people registered for the conference – representing 375 organizations across 56 countries around the globe.

EOSS hosted the Safety-Critical Software Summit, which was sponsored by the ELISA Project, that gathered safety experts and open source developers to enable and advance the use of open source in safety-critical applications. As part of the Summit, Nicole Pappler, CTO and Founder of AlektoMetis, and Philipp Ahmann, Technical Business Development Manager at Robert Bosch GmbH and Chair of the ELISA Project TSC, presented a session titled, “Coding Guidelines – to Comply or Not Comply – Some Myth Busting.”

While adhering to certain coding styles is a good practice in software projects, adhering to coding guidelines for safety critical applications is still something rather exotic in open source projects. As open source projects now more and more start to address the needs of functional safety applications, considering coding guidelines preferred by existing functional safety projects seems to become necessary. The most used rules for coding guidelines in the safety critical context are MISRA rules. While applying these can be quite beneficial for most applications, there is a significant number of exceptions where blindly following these rules causes more problems than it solves.

In this video, Nicole and Philipp discuss the most common coding guidelines, best practices and arguments when following the MISRA rules conflicts with the expectations of the project. Acceptance criteria for non-compliance cases along with examples of acceptable deviations will be presented. This is not contra coding guidelines, but illustrates how coding guidelines are beneficial for a project, what to consider when designing a project’s coding guidelines and how the lessons learned by the application of MISRA rule sets can be applied to languages that are not (yet?) covered by widely accepted rule sets.

Click here for the presentation slides. Click here to view the other videos from the Safety-Critical Software Summit.

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