Software safety certification: a multidomain problem

Multidomain software-intensive system certification is a growing concern in international standards organizations. Certification is traditionally based on domain-specific technical and operational requirements, historical information about the reliability of the different subsystems, and historical accident data, but these may not be available for interdomain systems. There is a need for international and interdisciplinary legal recognition of certification authorities. The author explores both the legal and technical aspects of this critical, timely problem.