In evaluating a system, appropriate metrics should be used; it may be necessary to measure secondary artifacts (e.g., process quality) as surrogates if what is actually of interest cannot be measured.

Developing ways to determine how best to allocate resources (e.g., understanding where errors are likely to cluster) can improve both dependability and cost-effectiveness.

Over the past several decades society has become increasingly dependent on software. While desktop systems are not generally regarded as safety-critical, these days they are often task-critical for their users. This is true not only at the individual level but also at the organizational level.

One increasingly sophisticated set of tools that can help in the software development process with respect to dependability is the set of tools related to programming languages, such as type checkers, static analyzers, and model checkers.

Systems integration is a growing and challenging problem. Additional tools and strategies are needed to cope with large-scale systems integration issues.

The process of certification may add value in a collateral fashion because attention must be paid to issues that might not receive it otherwise; given that software and its uses and contexts change over time, any value that certification has decays over time as well.

Market forces and the cost structure of the software industry may create incentives to release flawed software.

Validation—determining what the software should do—is often harder than verification, or determining whether the software does it correctly, and may be more important. Despite the difficulties of achieving validation systematically, however, many critical systems seem to function well.

Systems are certified only within a particular context and up to specified system boundaries; certification of a system may not guarantee the dependability and usefulness of a system over its lifetime.

As a system’s reliability increases or is demonstrated over long periods of time, dependence on that system may increase to an extent not anticipated in the original design.

Accountability, reporting, and communication are difficult issues that must be planned and managed in detail across an organization.