The FAA approves software when it is written according the DO-178B specification. This specification states that software when developed must adhere to a development process.
This is defined within the D) 178b as software requirements, software specification, software design, source code configuration, and software test suites. If one changes one part then all levels affected must change as well.
Simply put a paper trail must exist for every change made in a system. It is stringent anal rententive form of development. It is costly since the amount of book keeping that must be done to incorporate changes.
This is the 'cost' that O'Dowd is refering to. In order to make a 'DO-178B' compliant version of Linux a group of developers/software house would have to:
1) Ensure that a comprehensive set of functional requirements is generated to match the desired platform.
2) Define a kernel that matches desired functional requirement. Any kernel portion that is not needed is defined out.
3) Specify the behaviour for each driver. Ensure the driver is fully specified. Work from the source and ensure that the behaviour of each execution path is documented.
4) Ensure that all changes to this build are reviewed and a paper-trail exists for all changes and changes are made for solid well documented reasons.
5) Use the documented behaviours to generate test cases that validate the documented behaviour.
It goes on and on...
There is nothing inherent within Linux that would prevent a DO-178B build to be created.
Only in the last 3 years has Green-hills has marketed a DO-178B compliant system. DO-178B as a standard has been around for I believe the last 10 years. Hmmm...
To quote the article "Before founding There in 1998, Harvey was at Adobe Systems where he ran dynamic media products, including AfterEffects and Adobe Premier." Adobe licensed the technology from ImageWare in 1989. I used to work for ImageWare back from 1988 to 1990. The AfterEffects is based on the GalleryEffects.
If you bring up the about box for any of the "painterly" aftereffects, you will see the Portions copyright Imageware 1989-1995. If you do the lookup of the Patents 5063448, 5245432 and 5325200 you will see the names Ian Jaffary and John Bronskil the principals of ImageWare.
The product was licensed to a number of companies back then such Cubicomp, and AT&T for their Targaboards. I wrote the GUI for ImagePaint using MetaWindows and was the sole developer inhouse. I took over the GUI from an other developer and essentially rewrote the GUI from scratch.
I was uneasy about them applying and getting the patents at the time. There was a book published from Bell Labs 1988 called "Beyond Photography: The Digital Darkroom" by Gerard J. Holzmann. This books is a whimsical recap of the work done at Bell labs in previous years. There is a delightful picture of Dennis Ritchie as a photograph and again as an "oil painting." In the early eighties there was an article in Byte magazine about digital image processing and 'paint' like effects. That article was the inspiration for ImagePaint.
Image processing filters would be combined and the most promising visual artifacts would be indentified. This would continue until an image processing pipeline for a given 'painterly' effect was identified.
I had an interesting time working there however it was stressful.
Re:...will it now?
on
The Diamond Age
·
· Score: 0, Redundant
Actually it is really vaporware. One of the techniques used to make the sythetic diamond is vapor depositation.
Back in 1986, I worked for a company called Xanaro Technologies. I joined the company to be part of building an integrated word processing, spreadsheet, graphics and flat database program. What made the product unique at the time was the ability to link data such that when data was updated in the spreadsheet, it would update the graphics. OLE before OLE.
I joined in the spring all gung-ho and happy to work on a pontential Lotus killer. We believed in the product more so than the reality. The reality was in August we stopped getting paid. We continued to work for the next 3 months with no pay, subsiding on promises of next week we would be paid and that an investor was lined up.
I left to go back to Toronto in late November, poorer and some what wiser. Belief in a product or company is great. When that paycheque is missed, the company has failed in it's obligations to it's employees. There may extenuating circumstances, but those circumstances never can justify the failure of management to meet a payroll.
In my case the owner of the company lied to us. We believed his lies, because we were so caught up into doing something great! I still don't regret being conned, since I was so willing to be conned.
What I was left with was an appreciation that unless I have written stake in a company, then all the verbal promises are worth nothing. As it turns out we the employees were not the only ones left holding the bag. PC-World sent out a massive Ability demo, the designer of the Ability box was not paid, and millions of dollars was wasted on ??? All totalled the development cost about $500,000 dollars Cdn.
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The FAA approves software when it is written according the DO-178B specification. This specification states that software when developed must adhere to a development process.
This is defined within the D) 178b as software requirements, software specification, software design, source code configuration, and software test suites. If one changes one part then all levels affected must change as well.
Simply put a paper trail must exist for every change made in a system. It is stringent anal rententive form of development. It is costly since the amount of book keeping that must be done to incorporate changes.
This is the 'cost' that O'Dowd is refering to. In order to make a 'DO-178B' compliant version of Linux a group of developers/software house would have to:
1) Ensure that a comprehensive set of functional requirements is generated to match the desired platform.
2) Define a kernel that matches desired functional requirement. Any kernel portion that is not needed is defined out.
3) Specify the behaviour for each driver. Ensure the driver is fully specified. Work from the source and ensure that the behaviour of each execution path is documented.
4) Ensure that all changes to this build are reviewed and a paper-trail exists for all changes and changes are made for solid well documented reasons.
5) Use the documented behaviours to generate test cases that validate the documented behaviour.
It goes on and on...
There is nothing inherent within Linux that would prevent a DO-178B build to be created.
Only in the last 3 years has Green-hills has marketed a DO-178B compliant system. DO-178B as a standard has been around for I believe the last 10 years. Hmmm...
To quote the article "Before founding There in 1998, Harvey was at Adobe Systems where he ran dynamic media products, including AfterEffects and Adobe Premier." Adobe licensed the technology from ImageWare in 1989. I used to work for ImageWare back from 1988 to 1990. The AfterEffects is based on the GalleryEffects.
If you bring up the about box for any of the "painterly" aftereffects, you will see the Portions copyright Imageware 1989-1995. If you do the lookup of the Patents 5063448, 5245432 and 5325200 you will see the names Ian Jaffary and John Bronskil the principals of ImageWare.
The product was licensed to a number of companies back then such Cubicomp, and AT&T for their Targaboards. I wrote the GUI for ImagePaint using MetaWindows and was the sole developer inhouse. I took over the GUI from an other developer and essentially rewrote the GUI from scratch.
I was uneasy about them applying and getting the patents at the time. There was a book published from Bell Labs 1988 called "Beyond Photography: The Digital Darkroom" by Gerard J. Holzmann. This books is a whimsical recap of the work done at Bell labs in previous years. There is a delightful picture of Dennis Ritchie as a photograph and again as an "oil painting." In the early eighties there was an article in Byte magazine about digital image processing and 'paint' like effects. That article was the inspiration for ImagePaint.
Image processing filters would be combined and the most promising visual artifacts would be indentified. This would continue until an image processing pipeline for a given 'painterly' effect was identified.
I had an interesting time working there however it was stressful.
Actually it is really vaporware. One of the techniques used to make the sythetic diamond is vapor depositation.
It is interesting to note that the ages of his three kids are all consective primes:
3, 5 and 7.
I guess that would be one chilly willy?
Back in 1986, I worked for a company called Xanaro Technologies. I joined the company to be part of building an integrated word processing, spreadsheet, graphics and flat database program. What made the product unique at the time was the ability to link data such that when data was updated in the spreadsheet, it would update the graphics. OLE before OLE.
I joined in the spring all gung-ho and happy to work on a pontential Lotus killer. We believed in the product more so than the reality. The reality was in August we stopped getting paid. We continued to work for the next 3 months with no pay, subsiding on promises of next week we would be paid and that an investor was lined up.
I left to go back to Toronto in late November, poorer and some what wiser. Belief in a product or company is great. When that paycheque is missed, the company has failed in it's obligations to it's employees. There may extenuating circumstances, but those circumstances never can justify the failure of management to meet a payroll.
In my case the owner of the company lied to us. We believed his lies, because we were so caught up into doing something great! I still don't regret being conned, since I was so willing to be conned.
What I was left with was an appreciation that unless I have written stake in a company, then all the verbal promises are worth nothing. As it turns out we the employees were not the only ones left holding the bag. PC-World sent out a massive Ability demo, the designer of the Ability box was not paid, and millions of dollars was wasted on ??? All totalled the development cost about $500,000 dollars Cdn.