Subject: CHISSA Steering Committee

From: Jim Graham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 95 11:40:15 EDT

The CHISSA Steering Committee met at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) on April 11, 1995.  The purpose of
this meeting was to review white papers and to develop CHISSA's
program plan based on many parameters, including the white papers. 
We perceive CHISSA's role in providing a forum for interaction
among industry, government and academia crucial for accelerating
the acceptance and use of high integrity software system assurance
technology. 

We will focus initially on short-term tasks that will support this
acceleration, while planning a long term program.  Our intention is
to draft a formal document from our informal meeting minutes. 
Because this will be a formal publication, I am required to follow
NIST technical review procedures before I can send an email version
to you.  Once I have the approval, I will send you email, followed
by a formal paper copy when it is published. 

I thank all of you who took time to send papers.  We had almost 100
papers, with about half from industry, and the rest from government
and academia.  Of course, there were many cross-cutting
collaborations.  We will provide detailed summary information in
the formal report. 

In the meantime, I want to share with you the bare outline of
immediate plans that have evolved from the white papers and other
parameters affecting CHISSA.  While some papers addressed single
project concepts, almost all papers indicated problems with
technology awareness, experimentation and measurement problems, and
various infrastructure concerns.   With a limited funding
situation, CHISSA must focus on areas where it can do the most to
advance high assurance technology.  We have planned a group of
activities that are intended to address the major issues identified
in the white papers.  

The principal task is that of getting information to industry, in
a form that is usable by industry, on problems that will help
industry to produce high integrity software systems, cost-
effectively.  CHISSA will focus on these immediate activities: 

      Preparation and distribution of the CHISSA program as a formal
      document to all CHISSA participants

      Demonstration Facility utilizing the WWW, providing capability
      for interactive technical demonstrations and for technical
      information in many forms.

      Repository of industrial challenges: test cases, augmented
      research results, quantitative data

      Series of three types of workshops, all involving industry,
      government, and researchers: 
       
           one day workshops intended especially as outreaches to
           industry two day workshops that address infrastructure 
           issues for selecting appropriate research methods and 
           topics and packaging results that are usable by industry and
           government, and

           2 day workshops to assess state of practice and develop
           programs for specific technical topics.

      Collaboration with funding agencies.

I will be notifying you of dates of the first workshops within the
next few weeks.  I look forward to continued interaction with all
of you.  

Thanks, Dolores