/ TROSTing.org

TROSTing> index.htm> 2006-07-29 -23:19 -0700

You're at the front-porch entrance area (root-section) of the TROSTing.org web site.  TROSTing.org is a hub for collaborative development and application of frameworks for an evolutionary approach to raising open-system trustworthiness. 

1.  What It's All About
      1.1 Fundamental questions
      1.2 Trust and trustworthiness: perspective
      1.3 Patterns, frameworks, and templates
      1.4 TROST pilot project
      1.5 TROST bootstrap
2.  What's Here So Far
      2.1 Initial construction and engagement
      2.2 Construction office
      2.3 Development laboratory
      2.4 Information notes
      2.5 Project office

1. What It's All About

1.1 Fundamental Questions

The untrustworthiness and unreliability of software systems is an everyday complaint.    TROSTing and TROST projects are established to look at this state of affairs in a different way.  We want to look at trust and trustworthiness as the foundation on which all else rests.  Our question is not what the barriers are.  Instead, we ask this:

• How can we be reliable at delivering open-systems components with demonstrable trustworthiness? 
• After that, how do we continuously strive for achieving and sustaining new levels of trustworthiness?

1.1.1 Suppose that you are committed to producing trustworthy software systems.  You're completely willing to do everything in your power to demonstrate that you had done that and that people would know it.  What would you do?  What would you provide for others to be able confirm that trustworthiness and its assurance over time?

1.1.2 Suppose you want to integrate components into your own systems in a way that the result is trustworthy.  How do you assure that you've accomplished that?  What do you require of component suppliers to be able to confirm that?  How do you engage suppliers in a way that empowers their sustaining you in having trustworthy system operations?

1.1.3 What are the patterns of ongoing engagement by which trustworthiness is continuously created, demonstrated, repaired, and improved?

1.1.4 This exploration requires us to be clear about such terms as trust, trustworthiness, reliability, dependability, security, and safety.  With that background we are going to formulate a framework that proceeds from high-level context to ordinary, day-to-day practices that foster trustworthiness.  At the current early stage, it looks like this:

1.2 Trust and Trustworthiness: Perspective

 * We look at trust as a relationship in which people are voluntarily engaged and involved.
 * The test of trust is how the failing party remedies the breach.
 * The test of trustworthiness is how breach is mitigated and repair is assured.

 * Artifacts are trustworthy only to the extent that they are instruments of a trusted engagement.
 * There are trust engagements at all levels - trust is fractal, diffuse, and organic.
 * Trust flows downward from the highest levels of engagement.
 * Trustworthiness is built upward from the lowest, most menial levels.
  

1.3 Patterns, Frameworks, and Templates

 * There are patterns of behavior and processes that are characteristic of trustworthy performance.
 * The patterns constitute frameworks. 

 * The frameworks are a source of trustworthy design, development, and deployment of dependable open-system components.
 * Framework elements are often expressed as templates. 

 * The templates are customized as part of tailoring trustworthy development practices to individual circumstances.

  

1.4 TROST Pilot

 * The TROST Pilot project demonstrates TROSTing of a practical, definite open-systems component.

 * The component is ODMref 1.0 the Reference Implementation of an Open Document Management API (ODMA) Document-Management System integration.
 * The TROST Pilot provides a narrow, specific worked case as part of calibration of what can be done to establish trustworthiness in a simple, mundane software product.
 * Assessment of the TROST Pilot provides course-correction and a basis for expanding TROST coverage to new areas.
  

1.5 TROST Bootstrap

 * In undertaking the TROST Pilot, it's become clear that TROST must be in place at the very beginning of the TROST Pilot, before the development and delivery of any functionality at all.
 * We are in the delicate situation of needing some reliable level of TROST in the development of TROSTing and the TROST Pilot themselves. 

 * This is the TROST Bootstrap problem.  It also fits into risk-management concerns for having an early result to appraise.
 * The TROST Bootstrap is defined to be the first one or two "spirals" of the TROST Pilot development.
 * The Bootstrap, in addition to providing a minimum foundation of TROST, It introduces a skeletal "assembly-line" that can be confirmed to have a trustworthy basic level of TROSTing.

 * The Bootstrap is refined by progressive enhancements to spiral up through the development, construction, and deployment of the full TROST Pilot.

see also:

P050401b: 2005-03-11 Informal Announcement
P050405b: 2005-02-02 Approved SourceForge Project Application

2. What's Here So Far

2.1 Initial Construction and Engagement

We're in the construction and initial-engagement stage for development of the site and some pilot bootstrapping demonstration of framework approaches.  Community participation is fostered by use of a SourceForge project for discussion, review and collaboration.  The TROST-discuss email discussion list is now operating there, with additional facilities to be activated as material becomes available to share and discuss. 

At this point, TROSTing.org consists mainly of initial scaffolding with some content structure here and there.  Here's what there is so far:

2.2 Construction Office for work centered on construction of this site itself

A lot of this material was scavenged from other sites.  The only parts customized for this site are those that were needed immediately to support construction of other parts of the site.   This front-porch has its own construction zone, as do some of the other sections.
  

2.3 Development Laboratory is for software collected or developed in support of TROSTing procedures. 

This section will be one of the last to be populated.  It will be organized similarly to the ActiveODMA Development Tree and used for TROSTing-specific software tools.
   

2.4 Information Notes section of all information materials being developed

There is an initial catalog and templates for adding new notes to the site.   Some initial drafts are available.  It's pretty bottom-up right now.  This will become the largest single section of the site.
  

2.5 Project Office section that organizes all project information about TROST development

Software-engineering principles are being applied, with the usual difficulties that brings to working solo.  Just the same, we formalize the work in terms of projects and mini-projects.  All of the project-level documentation and status is captured here.   Materials that preceded creation of this site will be back-filled onto the site as we move ahead.

You are navigating TROSTing.org construction structure. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

created 2005-02-07-21:31 -0800 (pst) by orcmid $$Author: Orcmid $ $$Date: 06-07-29 23:19 $ $$Revision: 28 $