[SystemSafety] Software reliability (or whatever you would prefer to call it)

Smith, Brian E. (ARC-TH) brian.e.smith at nasa.gov
Mon Mar 9 17:15:40 CET 2015


Martyn,

Thanks for attempting to return the discussion to Œhome base.¹

In addition to the manifold academic and technical dimensions debated in
this thread, there is a moral one also that falls out of the
socio-tecnhical environment in which these software-intensive system
operate.

In his piece entitled Computing and Moral Responsibility, at,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computing-responsibility/, Merel Noorman
writesŠ


³The design and use of technological artifacts is a moral activity and the
choice for one particular design solution over another has real and
material consequences.

³Accountability Š is different from liability. Liability is about looking
for a person to blame and to compensate for damages suffered after the
event. Once that person has been found, others can be let Œoff the hook¹,
which may encourage people to look for excuses, such as blaming the
computer.  Accountability, however, applies to all those involved. It
requires a particular kind of organizational context, one in which
answerability works to entice people to pay greater attention to system
safety, reliability and sound design [my emphasis], in order to establish
a culture of accountability.  An organization that places less value on
accountability and that has little regards for responsibilities in
organizing their production  [or research] processes is more likely to
allow their technological products to become incomprehensible.²


Brian

On 3/9/15, 5:25 AM, "Martyn Thomas" <martyn at thomas-associates.co.uk> wrote:

>Nick
>
>You will recall that I started the thread with the title above by asking
>a question. To paraphrase: if some software is operating in a given
>operational environment, and fails repeatedly, and the causes of the
>failure are corrected by error corrections to the software, and the
>process continues for a significant time during which the number of
>failures per hour are observed to have reduced, what property of the
>software has improved? Specifically, why would it be wrong to call this
>property "reliability"?
>
>Is it meaningless to say that one release of a software system is "more
>reliable" than an earlier release? If you believe it is meaningless to
>talk of software reliability in these contexts, please explain what
>phrase you would prefer to use, and why.
>
>Martyn
>
> 
>
>On 09/03/2015 10:14, Nick Tudor wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> In my view, the reason so many have commented on the list is that the
>> kind of thinking espoused regarding so called "software reliability"
>> costs industry and tax payers money and it is frustrating to have such
>> written in standards which ill-informed users, such as those in
>> government, take as read.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>The System Safety Mailing List
>systemsafety at TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE

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