Studying qualities that can sustain trust in Open Source components

Today, many industries have experienced the power of Open Source Software to accelerate the development of global, low cost and reliable information systems, but wait for ultimate proof of trust to definitively commit to large scale deployments. The goal of this research activity is the identification, quantification, and assessment of the quality factors that affect trust in Open Source Software products. This research will identity technological pre-requisites and requirements allowing to establish common quality test and benchmark approaches, and define a methodology for the evaluation of the trustworthiness of OSS products. This methodology will encompass metrics definition, measurement practices, data analysis, test suites definition, performance benchmarking, and indicators computation. The approach will constantly keep in mind the needs of both OSS developers and OSS users. An extensive set of Open Source tools supporting the evaluation of OSS trustworthiness will be built and integrated in a platform to support trustworthy Open Source Software development. These tools will cover all aspects of Open Source Software qualities, and will be based on an open architecture. Ease of use will be a key objective for these tools, in order to ease the adoption of the methodology.

CONTACT

A5 Activity leader: Sandro Morasca - Università degli Studi dell'Insubria - Email: