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

[C. Michael Holloway]

On 3/10/15 7:44 AM, Littlewood, Bev wrote:
> … But I don’t think that the man in the street, contemplating his 
> broken-down car (in the rain - let’s pile on the pathos!), would be 
> comforted to be told it was not unreliable, it just had /design/ faults. 
I totally disagree.  I think the man or woman on the street would 
understand the difference, and be far more annoyed at the latter than 
the former.
> And, of course, your interpretation seems to rule out the contribution 
> of human fallibility (e.g. pilots) to the reliability and/or safety of 
> systems. This seems socially unacceptable, at least to me.
No it doesn't. I am only saying that I think it is important to restrict 
the use of the term reliability (or to be more precise, the use of 
probabilities), not the range of factors that are considered when 
assessing safety.

-- 
/*cMh*/

*C. Michael Holloway*

The words in this message are mine alone; neither blame nor credit NASA 
for them.
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