Dependability certification of software components

Software components need a uniform approach for rating their quality. The need for this stems from a licensee's inaccessibility to the source code as well as other information concerning how thoroughly the component was validated. This paper proposes a `test quality rating' (TQR) metric that will act as a component's dependability `score'. We envision a process whereby a software publisher submits a component to an independent certification organization that would then calculate TQR for that component. It is preferable for component dependability validation to be performed by an independent organization. This is because even an honest dependability overestimation error on the part of the publisher could be grounds for severe legal penalties. This score would be displayed on any marketing materials or contracts which license that component. In our paper we provides results from applying the metric to a commercial financial application written in Java in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the metric.