Ben fowler writes:
If you're stupid enough, despite the EULA, to use our (Microsoft Windows) software to run a nuclear reactor, weapon system or other safety critical system, then it's your funeral (and maybe everyone else's)
The trouble is, windows is everywhere.
I've been working with Solaris for the last five years, but that's coming to an end. Particularly in asia Sun is often seen by our customers as a supplier with an unsteady future ahead of it. They want commodity hardware to work with, and commodity software. Some ask for Linux by name. Some ask for Windows by name, especially for desktop machines.
The reasons are sometimes complex and varied. Sometimes they ask for a SCADA system but secretly dream of a general computing platform that they can use to access other systems as well, or maybe just trawl the internet for humor. Sometimes they want to avoid us having them over a barrel when it comes time to upgrade. They want to be able to buy their own hardware, or at least feel confident they could if they needed too.
Often the customer doesn't have as much expertise as they think they do, and what they assume anyone can do would actually introduce risks to the system unless it is very carefully considered with some reasonably in-depth knowledge. In the end, we provide a solution. When the solution needs to be updated we are probably the best people to do it (if you're still staying with our systems).
Anyway, I meander from the point.
Windows.
Windows is used in saftey-related systems. Not all of them, but many of them. People who work with safety-related systems want commodity hardware and software, too, and until recently the options have been very slim indeed. They remain slim, to be honest. When you aren't dealing with hard realtime requirements and you have a software-heavy solution you don't want to reinvent the operating system, hardware, and development environment. You use something off the shelf that does the job and doesn't cost too much money. Companies that provide these systems aren't very good at sharing with each other, so truth be known there's not a whole lot out there. Windows is said to be a good choice, at least once you've pulled out any uneccessary services and run the same version for half a decade or so. It can be a good choice. Most vendors in the field have far more experience in deploying Windows solutions than Linux or BSD solutions.
My background over most of the past five years hasn't actually been with saftey-related software. The project I was working on involved code that was one step removed from the safety-related component. That's no longer true, so I've been immersed in saftey-related thinking relatively recently. At first it surprised me that the people who did have a lot of safety-related software experience dealt mostly with windows. It surprised me more when they told me that while they were currenly only certified with an ageing windows NT operating system base they felt confident in achieving certification very soon under Windows XP. They weren't much interested in Linux, and the idea of using Solaris seemed outright confusing to them.
Of course, we're not talking about nuclear reactors here. We're talking SIL2 systems (sometimes called non-vital in the old tongue) that tell SIL4 systems what to do. In the end it is the SIL4 systems that decide whether something is safe or not, and are perfectly willing to override the SIL2 decision when it suits them. Some of those SIL4 systems are technological. Some are procedural. Still, it's very embarrassing when your SIL2 system goes down even after accumulating several years of uptime. We prefer to see the hardware fail before the software does. Likewise, SIL2 systems do have safety-related responsibilities (otherwise they'd be SIL0). Unlike a vital safety-critical (SIL3 or SIL4) system, your non-vital saftey-related (SIL1 or SIL2) system typically generates unsafe situations when it fails badly as opposed to actually killing someone directly. We all like to be sure that ours sytems aren't going to fail badly.
Meandering again, yes.
The safety-related parts of our applications also tend to be running on secure networks, although we've seen recently that isn't always a true safeguard. Oh well.
Now what does the UK Health & Safety directorate have to say about the use of Linux and Windows? They're pretty conservative guys, but are surprisingly positive about linux. They were (very breifly) less positive about windows. That report was pulled, though, no doubt after pressure from both Microsoft and parts of the various represented industries that were more comfortable with their windows solutions than any potential linux solution.
In the end, I think we'll see a linux vs windows battle on the safety-related software front. Each one will creep up to around the high SIL2 mark and most applications will be able to make use of either one. Currenly windows is still out in front in that arena (at least from where I'm sitting) because of longer term industry exposure. When look towards the SIL4 mark we will continue to see (as we do now) lots of bespoke software and hardware that brings in enough margin not to have to commoditize. Until the market shifts to put pricing pressure on those guys I think we'll continue to see that approach. On my end of the market, though, there is a price squeeze that makes bespoke impossible. Non-commodity non-bespoke solutions such as the use of Sun hardware and software are becoming a nonsense to our sector as they are to many other sectors. Windows and Linux look like the only contenders (and linux has a lot of catching up to do).
Benjamin