[SystemSafety] Collected stopgap measures

Paul Sherwood paul.sherwood at codethink.co.uk
Sat Nov 3 20:00:19 CET 2018


On 2018-11-03 18:52, Martyn Thomas wrote:
> Unfortunately, IES 61508 isn't fit for purpose in a world with far
> more software than hardware and a large and growing cybersecurity
> threat. It was a decent standard for the 1980s, when almost nothing
> else existed.

It's not just me seeing that, then.

> It can't be fixed because the standardisation process is broken:
> dominated by industry (because few others can afford to participate
> fully - or get compensated for the mind-numbing tedium of endless
> meetings with opposition from people with a different agenda).
> Industry is good at standardising plugs and sockets, but useless at
> setting aside commercial interests in the public good.  Which is why
> 61508 is illogical, unscientific, and irredeemable. Public good
> standards should be written by independent experts, throwing down the
> gauntlet to industry to decide whether or not to follow the standard.

Agreed.

To be fair, I'm learning a lot from the discourse here, and I'm sure 
others do too, but I don't see any basis for the work you're describing 
getting *done* here. The kinds of documents I'm hoping for will be on 
gitlab/github, with evidence of history, active reviews and CI/CD.

br
Paul



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