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From: jbn@wdl1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: SRI verification work reviewed
Message-ID: <723@wdl1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 14:58:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: wdl1.723
Posted: Thu Sep 26 14:58:52 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 08:26:03 EDT
Sender: notes@wdl1.UUCP
Organization: Ford Aerospace, Western Development Laboratories
Lines: 37
Nf-ID: #N:wdl1:1100022:000:1792
Nf-From: wdl1!jbn    Sep 26 11:49:00 1985


      The current state of the art in the verification field is worse
than one may think from reading the literature.  I have just obtained a
copy of ``Peer Review of a Formal Verification/Design Proof Methodology'',
(NASA Conference Publication 2377, NASA Langley Research Center, 
Scientific and Technical Information Branch, 1985), which is highly critical
of SRI International's work in the area.  The work being evaluated is SRI's
verification of the Software Implemented Fault Tolerance system,  a 
multiprocessor system intended for use in future aircraft flight control 
systems.  Some quotes from the report:
	
[p. 22]
	``Scientific workers are expected to describe their accomplishments
in a way that will not mislead or misinform.  Members of the peer review
panel felt that many publications and conference presentations of the SRI
International verification work have not accurately presented the 
accomplishments of the project; several panel members, as a result of the
peer review, felt that much of what they though had been done had indeed
not been done.''

	``The research claims that the panel considered to be unjustified
are primarily in two categories; the first concerns the methodology 
purportedly used by SRI International to validate SIFT, and the second
concerns the degree to which the validation had actually been done.
	Many publications and conference presentations concerning SIFT
appear to have misrepresented the accomplishments of the project.''

[p. 23]
	``The incompleteness of the SIFT verification exercise caused
concern at the peer review.  Many panel members who expected (from the
literature) a more extensive proof were disillusioned.  It was the
consensus of the panel that SRI's acomplishment claims were strongly
misleading.''


			John Nagle


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