LDRA have been actively contributing to software standards, guidelines, and advisory information for decades. Our dedication to safe and secure software development has been consistent for almost half a century, and in that time, we have become established and prominent authorities in the field – just the kind of people you’d expect to be documenting best practices!
ISO (International Organization for Standardization), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) are three of the top entities responsible for establishing standards in the field of software development.
Although there is some variation in the process between different organisations, the process is essentially similar for each.
The authors of standards are a collection of people with sufficient knowledge and experience to help define current best practice in the pertinent field.
The process starts with the writing of a draft that addresses a specific market need in a particular domain. This draft is subsequently circulated for feedback and in-depth deliberation.
The pivotal stage in achieving consensus is the voting process. Should consensus remain elusive, further adjustments are made to the draft, and another round of voting ensues.
When consensus is reached, the draft is refined, formalised, and circulated for industry review before finally becoming a standard.
Typically, the journey from initial proposal to the ultimate publication of a standard spans approximately three years.
LDRA’s involvement is partly altruistic. This is an industry that has provided the company’s employees and directorate with a living for many years, and giving something back to that industry is the right thing to do.
From a more down-to-earth perspective, our involvement gives us an insight into how new standards and guidelines are shaping up. That allows us to be sure that our offerings are always up-to-date and prepared.
Aside from the obvious benefit of creating standards for your organisation to work with, LDRA’s involvement with standards provides reassurance that you are dealing with some of the world’s leading authorities on the subjects that matter to you.
Being a part of the standards development community also ensures that we understand the finer points of new standards and guidelines. This ensures that our products and services are consistently based on an accurate interpretation of their intent.
LDRA’s technical specialists have contributed to many standards and guidelines over the decades. The following list is not comprehensive but gives an idea of the level of input across the sectors.
DO-178 is a standard that provides guidelines for the development and certification of software used in safety-critical airborne systems.
LDRA has participated extensively on both the DO-178B and DO-178C committees over nearly two decades. Mike Hennell, LDRA’s CEO, was instrumental in the inclusion of several test measurement objectives in the standard, including those relating to structural coverage analysis. The LDRA tool suite was a forerunner in automated verification for certification to both the DO-178B standard for airborne software systems, and to its companion standard, DO-278 for ground-based systems.
LDRA representation on DO-178 committees includes, or has included:
Managed by The Open Group, the FACE Consortium initially consisted of American industry suppliers, customers, and users with a specific focus on aviation. Its objective was to establish uniform methods for introducing open standards software into avionics systems.
FACE now encompasses organizations in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and is used in the development of many military systems across land, sea, and air.
LDRA representation on the FACE Consortium includes, or has included, membership of:
ISO 26262 is an international functional safety standard for the development of electrical and electronic systems in road vehicles.
LDRA representation on the ISO 26262 committee includes, or has included:
The MISRA organisation functions as a collaborative entity dedicated to formulating and upholding coding principles tailored to the construction of software within safety-, security-, and mission-critical systems.
LDRA representation on the MISRA committees includes, or has included:
The ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 Subcommittee on Software and Systems Engineering operates as a segment of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, which is a collaborative effort between the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). This subcommittee is responsible for the creation and promotion of standards related to software product and system engineering.
LDRA’s representation relating to the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 committee includes, or has included:
BSI IST/15 is responsible for the UK input into the work of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 and national standards for Software and System Engineering.
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 is the international standardization subcommittee for the programming languages, including C and C++.
LDRA representation on ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22 includes, or has included:
BSI IST/5 is responsible for the UK input into the work of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 and national standards for programming languages.
This is a standard for British software producers. The objective is to help software engineers produce trustworthy code, i.e., code that is safe, secure, resilient, available, and reliable.
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