Organization Name:
AdaCore

Country:
USA

Bio:
Dr. Benjamin Brosgol is a member of AdaCore's senior technical staff. He has been involved with programming language design and implementation throughout his career, concentrating on languages and software engineering technologies for high-assurance systems. Dr. Brosgol was a member of the design team for Ada 95, and he also served in the Expert Group for the Real-Time Specification for Java. He is Vice Chair of The Open Group FACE™ Consortium Technical Working Group and an active member of the Operating Systems Subcommittee and the Enterprise Architecture EA-25 subteam. His publications include a number of articles and papers on FACE related technologies.

How long have you been involved with The Open Group?
AdaCore joined the FACE Consortium since 2012 and upped its sponsorship level to Principal Member in 2019. I became involved with AdaCore’s FACE related activities in 2017, to help address some issues in the mapping of IDL to Ada, and I have been active ever since.

What do you do, and how long have you been doing it?
I have been participating in the Operating System Segment (OSS) subcommittee of the FACE Consortium Technical Working Group (TWG) since 2017, where I have been mainly focused on the Ada language support in the FACE Technical Standard. As one example, I helped specify capability sets for Ada 2012 so that FACE software developers can take advantage of features such as contract-based programming (which can facilitate verification). More recently, I have been active in the Enterprise Architecture subteam EA-25, which is preparing a white paper on how FACE conformance can contribute to airworthiness. And in June 2020, I was elected Vice Chair of the TWG.

Why did your organization become a Member of The Open Group FACE™ Consortium and what does/will your involvement look like?
AdaCore’s major product offerings are based on the Ada language, which has a long and successful pedigree in the Military/Aerospace industry. A number of key customers are using Ada in developing avionics systems for both military and commercial aircraft, and we want to make sure that the Ada language is properly supported in the FACE Technical Standard and in the FACE conformance procedures. Although we ourselves do not directly produce airborne software, we supply development and verification toolsets that our customers can use to produce FACE conformant components.

How has/will membership in The Open Group benefit you, your organization, and the industry at large?
As a Principal Member of the FACE Consortium, AdaCore participates directly in the group’s decision making. We thus benefit from a receptive forum where we can express our perspective as a third-party supplier of software development environments.

The FACE effort is focused on software portability and reuse; AdaCore’s products (and the Ada language in general) complement these advantages by providing additional assurance – both in static / compile-time detection of errors and in run-time checks. This helps the industry both in saving costs (through reuse) and in meeting the relevant requirements for reliability, safety, and security.

On a personal level, participating in the FACE Consortium has given me the opportunity to interact with some of the community’s leading experts in addressing important and challenging technical issues and has been professionally rewarding. 

What contributions do you hope to bring to The Open Group?
My background is in programming language technology (mostly Ada) and in software assurance certification (DO-178C), and I have been drawing on my experience in these areas to contribute to the FACE Consortium. Examples include the IDL-to-Ada mapping, the Ada capability sets, and a white paper on FACE conformance and airworthiness.

Why is it important for other organizations to join The Open Group?
Technology is constantly changing, and The Open Group work is useful in providing industry and government with consensus-based open standards. Participating in The Open Group gives organizations a forum in which they can present their perspective and allow the community to take advantage of their expertise. It also offers a business benefit: an opportunity to meet with existing or new customers.

What are your hobbies?
Not sure if this is really a hobby, but during the pandemic I got into binge-watching The Office and became a fan. I also enjoy classic movies and am a bit of a Hitchcock buff (North by Northwest is my favorite, with Rebecca not far behind). And I am constantly enchanted by The Third Man with Orson Welles. A few years ago, while in Vienna to attend an Ada-Europe conference, I visited a museum dedicated to The Third Man and learned quite a bit about the film as well as post-war Vienna.

What book are you currently reading?
Dawn of the Belle Epoque by Mary McAuliffe, which gives a history of late-19th century Paris through the perspectives of luminaries in various fields (Monet, Zola, Bernhardt, Eiffel, Debussy, Clemenceau,…)

What social networks do you belong to?
LinkedIn.

Any last thoughts?
I look forward to continuing my role in the FACE Consortium as the FACE Technical Standard evolves.