[SystemSafety] The Bielefeld List

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

We have set up a mailman-based mailing list at the University of Bielefeld Faculty of Technology for 
discussions of system safety. The reason for setting it up now is practical and somewhat due to my 
weaknesses; there doesn't seem to be anybody around at York this week with whom to negotiate 
people's concerns about a Google-mediated service, and I am afraid I would start to lose track of 
the inclusion requests if we waited until next week!

There are about 150 initial members, some fifth of the York-list total. If you didn't get the 
welcome message and you wish to be included on the Bielefeld list, please send either myself, or the 
administator Jan Sanders, or the request-inbox of the list, an email with your request:

ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de
jsanders at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
systemsafety-request at techfak.uni-bielefeld.de

The welcome message also includes a password with which list subscribers can administer their 
membership without our involvement (unsubscribing, for example).

Some people have expressed concern privately about "splitting" the safety-critical systems community 
through installing a second mailing list. I sympathise strongly with such concern. There are a 
variety of considerations.

First, there is not just one list. At Bielefeld, we already run four: the Bieleschweig-Workshop 
list, the list of people concerned about safety in the process industries, a list of German 
engineers working on IEC 61508 Part 3 (software safety), and an international list of people working 
towards a new software-safety standard for ground-based air traffic management, control and service 
systems consist with recent European directives. Less than half of the total membership of these 
lists is on the York list. And that's just here at Bielefeld. Then there is EWICS. I am sure places 
such as MIT and Newcastle SCSC have their own lists. TU Braunschweig does for its Safety in 
Transportation workshop series. There are a lot of lists out there.

Second, some people have lost a service they value (and they value it for good reason; the York list 
has done a wonderful job for a decade and a half). Uni York has gone to Google services for e-mail; 
John McDermid told me that a couple weeks ago. Those with reservations about, or through their place 
of work are hindered from using, commercial services through Google can no longer use Uni York 
mailing list and archiving services, it seems. I regret that hugely. For those who want to continue 
discussing or lurking on a system safety discussion list, there is now the option we have provided.

Third, some people suspect I am (we are) talking an opportunity to preempt York. Now, as everyone 
here knows for many years, I am utterly hopeless at politics and probably nothing I say will allay 
that suspicion, but let me try anyway. I value the York list and the service it has provided highly. 
Jan and I are not looking for new ways to spend our copious free time, because we don't have any. 
However, we both think it is important to retain continuity in and with the York community, and to 
do that with minimal use of resources. Setting up this mailing list looks to us to be the best 
option at present. (But we still need to determine the best archiving option.) People are welcome to 
disagree with that judgement. I am very willing to engage with good arguments for better options - 
especially from people at York!

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de