As far as I've seen, DO-178 is only specified on a contract-by-contract basis, for both FAA and DoD avionics projects.

For those who want to get a copy of DO-178B, it's available from:

http://www.rtca.org/store/product.asp?dept%5Fid=1&sku=082

Glenn Booker

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Ada Marketing <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Ada Marketing <[log in to unmask]>
Date:         Thu, 21 Dec 2000 10:22:56 -0500

>Mike,
>
>Thanks for the reply.  I guess I wasn't very clear in my initial message.  I
>do know DO-178B very well.  I misspoke by saying it was a commercial avionics
>standard in that it is used by commercial avionics, but is a government
>standard.
>
>What I was wondering though, is if there is any military standard that would
>imply military avionics projects have to conform to DO-178B, and/or such a
>requirement?
>
>
>Mike Brenner wrote:
>
>> Ada Marketing wrote:
>> > Some military programs are now requiring the conformance to commercial
>> > standards, such as the FAA's DO-178B.
>> > Is there a defined government mandate that encourages or requires this?
>>
>> The FAA is the agency that usually mandates DO-178B. That standard is
>> quite close to saying something like it requires both CMM Level 4 and an
>> INSPECE (independent software performance evaluation and coding
>> examination as used on nuclear weapons programs).
>>
>> DO-178B compliance is tailorable on a per-contract basis and includes
>> such stuff as:
>>
>>         process model of the software maintenance
>>         strict configuration management
>>         metrics on hanging pointers, memory leakages, overflows
>>         quality assurance to analyze the trends in metrics
>>         both product and process audits
>>         testing standards
>>         independent proof that no extraneous outputs are generated
>>         testing that trace every input and output
>>         automated testing
>>         automated integration testing
>>         built-in-tests
>>         battle shorts
>>         tools and methods of analyzing the impact of change
>>         enterprise logging
>>         data integrity
>>         carrying out the testing when the HW, SW, OS, or net changes
>>         software peer reviews
>>
>> It is true that DO-178B was written by a "commercial" aviation
>> organization, but I think of it more as a government standard.
>>
>> ADVICE: First, define the requirements for how well the software has to
>> work, get everyone's agreement on those requirements, and then tailor
>> the DO-178B requirements on your contract to those requirements.
>>
>> Mike Brenner
>
>