Jeff Voas of Reliable Software Technologies, Inc., distributed the following announcement on 1 November:
The Annual COMPuter ASSurance (COMPASS) Conference, that has been held yearly at NIST in Gaithersburg, MD, and is sponsored by the IEEE National Capital Area and the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic System Society will not be held in 1998. On September 15, 1997 the COMPASS Board of Directors passed a motion to pursue becoming a Technical Committee (TC) under the IEEE Computer Society. The former Board of Directors, which is now the Interim COMPASS Task Force, is currently preparing a formal request to the IEEE Computer Society for this to occur.If this request is granted, then the newly formed Technical Committee will have the authority to hold future conferences. The earliest that these conferences could be held is 1999. It is anticipated that the new COMPASS conference(s) will be held in new locations and will remain focused on the principles of software assurance. Building systems with assurance and measuring that assurance will remain in the mission statement and charter of this new organization as fundamental goals.
After twelve years of serving the information systems community, the Board of Directors felt that it was time to freshen and revamp the COMPASS organization (which began its mission in the mid-1980s). By doing this, the software community will be better served with information and events that are more in line with problems that researchers, practitioners, and theorists are facing as we near the close of this century. Interested parties in participating in the Technical Committee should contact Bonnie Danner at bonnie.danner@faa.dot.gov.