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On the Use of Non-technical Requirements for the Evaluation of FOSS Software Components

Abstract:

Modern enterprises rely on Information Systems specifically designed to manage the increasing complexity of their operation. In the usual case, they are built as hybrid systems which integrate several software components of different nature and origins e.g.; legacy systems, web services, commercial components (typically referred as COTS) and, Free and/or Open Source Software (FOSS). The evaluation of individual software components is highly relevant in this kind of system and is usually conducted with the support of software Quality Models. However, these artifacts usually consider only the evaluation of technical quality requirements, in detriment of non-technical ones (e.g. costs, legal and quality of suppliers) which can be just as critical, particularly in the selection of COTS and FOSS. In this paper, we propose an extension to preexisting software Quality Models, intended to deal with technical and non-technical quality requirements in a homogeneous and holistic way. The relevance of the approach is illustrated in relation to four industrial FOSS adoption processes.