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Thanks to Scott Zemerick <scott.zemerick@tmctechnologies.com> for the analysis and ideas that led to this.
81 lines
4.6 KiB
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81 lines
4.6 KiB
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.. comment SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-SA-4.0
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.. COMMENT: COPYRIGHT (c) 1988-2008.
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.. COMMENT: On-Line Applications Research Corporation (OAR).
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.. COMMENT: COPYRIGHT (c) 2016-2018.
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.. COMMENT: RTEMS Foundation, The RTEMS Documentation Project
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Introduction to Pre-Qualification
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*********************************
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RTEMS has a long history of being used to support critical
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applications. In some of these application domains, there are standards
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(e.g., DO-178C, NPR 7150.2) which define the expectations for the
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processes used to develop software and the associated artifacts. These
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standards typically do not specify software functionality but address
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topics like requirements definition, traceability, having a documented
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change process, coding style, testing requirements, and a user’s
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manual. During system test, these standards call for a review – usually
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by an independent entity – that the standard has been adhered too. These
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reviews cover a broad variety of topics and activities, but the process
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is generally referred to as qualification, verification, or auditing
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against the specific standard in use. The RTEMS Project will use the
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term “qualification” independent of the standard.
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The goal of the RTEMS Qualification Project is to make RTEMS easier
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to review regardless of the standard chosen. Quite specifically,
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the RTEMS Qualification effort will NOT produce a directly qualified
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product or artifacts in the format dictated by a specific organization
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or standard. The goal is to make RTEMS itself, documentation, testing
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infrastructure, etc. more closely align with the information requirements
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of these high integrity qualification standards. In addition to improving
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the items that a mature, high quality open source project will have,
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there are additional artifacts needed for a qualification effort that
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no known open source project possesses. Specifically, requirements and
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the associated traceability to source code, tests, and documentation
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are needed.
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The RTEMS Qualification Project is technically
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“pre-qualification”. True qualification must be performed on the
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project’s target hardware in a system context. The FAA has provided
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guidance for Reusable Software Components (FAA-AC20-148) and this
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effort should follow that guidance. The open RTEMS Project, with the
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assistance of domain experts, will possess and maintain the master
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technical information needed in a qualification effort. Consultants
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will provide the services required to tailor the master information,
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perform testing on specific system hardware, and to guide end users in
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using the master technical data in the context of a particular standard.
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The RTEMS Qualification Project will broadly address two areas. The
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first area is suggesting areas of improvement for automated project
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infrastructure and the master technical data that has traditionally been
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provided by the RTEMS Project. For example, the RTEMS Qualification could
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suggest specific improvements to code coverage reports. The teams focused
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on qualification should be able to provide resources for improving the
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automated project infrastructure and master technical data for RTEMS. The
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term “resources” is often used by open source projects to refer to
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volunteer code contributions or funding. Although code contributions in
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this area are important and always welcome, funding is also important. At
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a minimum, ongoing funding is needed for maintenance and upgrades of
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the RTEMS Project server infrastructure, addition of services to those
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servers, and core contributors to review submissions
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The second area is the creation and maintenance of master technical
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data that has traditionally not been owned or maintained by the RTEMS
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Project. The most obvious example of this is a requirements set with
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proper infrastructure for tracing requirements through code to test
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and documentation. It is expected that these will be maintained by the
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RTEMS Qualification Project. They will be evaluated for adoption by
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the main RTEMS Project but the additional maintenance burden imposed
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will be a strong factor in this consideration. It behooves the RTEMS
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Qualification Project to limit dependence on manual checks and ensure
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that automation and ongoing support for that automation is contributed
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to the RTEMS Project.
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It is expected that the RTEMS Qualification Project will create and
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maintain maps from the RTEMS master technical data to the various
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qualification standards. It will maintain “scorecards” which
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identify how the RTEMS Project is currently doing when reviewed per each
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standard. These will be maintained in the open as community resources
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which will guide the community in improving its infrastructure.
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