About TROSTing Web

*TROSTing***> repaving> 2011-11-25 announcement>**
TROSTing Is Being Repaved. The Construction Structure and Content of this site is being repaved by customization of material scavenged from other nfoCentrale sites and the systematic upgrade of the style of this site. Check the Repaving Project pages for additional details on the approach and its tracking. Contact the TROSTing technical coordinator with questions and to report any defects that you notice.

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 TROST frameworks. TROSTing is an evolutionary approach to raising open-system trustworthiness.

1. What It's All About

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 [from 2005-06-20 - to be replaced as of 0.05]

* 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.

2. What's Here So Far

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.

0.05 2011-11-26T22:30Z Split from index.htm and Repave: This will be a separate description, with index.htm used exclusively for Construction Structure. This page is repaved to fit with the current repaving project. Later it will be transformed to be a content page served from an info folio.
0.04 2005-08-12T06:03Z Add Permalinks: The convention throughout this site is to use section numbering in a liberal way and have the section numbers be permalinks to those sections (or paragraphs). This way, people can link and point to specific sections in feedback, comments, and discussion.
0.03 2005-07-20T06:30Z Correct some typographical errors: In referring others to this page, I noticed a couple of defects while verifying the links that I offered up.
0.02 2005-06-20T03:08Z Provide cues to the Descent and Ascent pivoting on Bootstrapping: There is enough here that is current to suggest where we are going in vague general terms that we now must flesh out with content.
0.01 2005-06-06T00:31Z Open Up for Visitors on Preview Tours: There is enough information to allow people in on previews of the site. This is the commencement of TROST engagement.
0.00 2005-04-30T24:55Z Early Scaffolding; last updated 2005-05-07T19:00Z: The site consists of scaffolding, exposed girders, tarp-covered stacks of materials, and some rickety boards across puddles on the excavated earth. There is a hastily-erected construction shack and some strings of bare bulbs where the construction team is laying out work and hammering forms for a durable project office that will house the prime contractor's architectural and engineering team.
A board fence along the site perimeter carries initial notices about the construction. One sign provides contact information. A knothole in the fence reveals shadowy movement, rumbling equipment, and the whine of a rotary saw. Arc-welder sparks splash out from the darkness of the freshly-prepared foundation.
The pre-dawn sky dimly silhouettes an array of jutting pilings and projecting beams, as if preventing the flight of a sky-pointed crane atop one corner's girders.

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

created 2005-02-07-21:31 -0800 (pst) by orcmid
$$Author: Orcmid $
$$Date: 13-08-22 15:32 $
$$Revision: 57 $

TROSTing Is Being Repaved.

1. What It's All About

2. What's Here So Far