Dependability certification of software components

Software components need a uniform approach for rating their quality. The n eed for this stems from a licensee's inaccessibility to the source code as well as other information concerning how thoroughly the component was valid ated. This paper proposes a 'test quality rating' (TQR) metric that will ac t as a component's dependability 'score'. We envision a process whereby a s oftware publisher submits a component to an independent certification organ ization that would then calculate TQR for that component. It is preferable for component dependability validation to be performed by an independent or ganization. This is because even an honest dependability overestimation err or on the part of the publisher could be grounds for severe legal penalties . This score would be displayed on any marketing materials or contracts whi ch license that component. In our paper we provides results from applying t he metric to a commercial financial application written in Java in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the metric. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc . All rights reserved.