RESAFE - International Workshop on Software Reuse and Safety

25 May 2008, Beijing, China

Held in conjunction with the Tenth International Conference on Software Reuse (ICSR 10)

Attendees

•   Bill Frakes, Virginia Tech (USA)
•   John Favaro, Intecs SpA (Italy)
•   Dirk Muthig, IESE (Germany)
•   Eduardo Almeida, RiSE (Brazil)
•   Gerd Dauenhauer, University of Salzburg (Austria)
•   Thomas Aschauer, University of Salzburg (Austria)
•   Gregory Kulczycki, Virginia Tech (USA)

Formal Presentations

Selected abstracts:

Title: “Software Safety and Security Issues in the Italian Automotive Industry”

Presenter: John Favaro, Intecs SpA (ITALY)

Abstract: Software is becoming an increasingly large component of automotive control systems, with corresponding issues for safety. Security is also becoming an issue, as automotive systems open up to the outside world with open communications. The Automotive SPIN organization seeks to identify issues in safety, security, and certification of mission-critical systems in automotive control, including the certification of systems involving reusable components. The state of the art of these various issues is presented.

Title: A Wrapper Approach to Increase Safety in Proven Reuse Software Components

Presenter: William B. Frakes and Jorly Metzger, Virginia Tech (USA)

Abstract: Safety is a recurring issue in software reuse even when proven reuse software components are used.  A software component proven to be safe in one environment is not guaranteed to be safe when reused in another environment. Levenson provides a specification to better increase safety in software components when reused in different environments. This paper proposes a project to implement a wrapper implementation of those specifications using a Design by Contract approach. 

Title: Design by Contract as a basis for certifiable safety-critical software components

Presenter: Greg Kulczycki, Virginia Tech (USA)

Abstract: Design by Contract is a well-known technique for the development of reliable software, and has recently been put forward by the originator Bertrand Meyer as basis for assuring safety-critical software, as in a discussion of the Ariane 5 accident of the European Space Agency. This presentation discusses the potential of Design by Contract in a context of augmenting the safety-assurance of software components in order to facilitate the possibility of formal certification.

Issues discussed

The following is a concise list of topics discussed during the workshop.

1. Formal Methods for Safety Functions

2. Use of wrappers for making components safer

3. There is no standard way of writing contracts for components. In Java, there is JML. In C#, there is Spec#.

4. Traceability with development process with reuse

5. Bertrand Meyer - trusted components

6. Configuration of reusable components

7. Safety = reliability for hardware?

8. How is safety measured?

9. Safety certification process

10. Safety and law -- contracts

11. Reliability = safety in terms of contracts?
     

Summary Mind Map