COTS products characterization

Abstract

A way to learn about Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products is to define a set of characteristics or attributes and then to collect information about these attributes. In an industrial context, the attributes used to select COTS clearly depend on project specific goals. In our educational context we made an attempt to define general COTS characterization attributes. The resulting framework provides a structure, which facilitate the learning process. Our proposed attributes have several similarities with the generic evaluation attributes defined by ISO 9126. A comparison with such a standard provides a deeper insight into the problem of characterizing COTS products.

An exploratory study for effective COTS and OSS product marketing

“…However, we have been motivated by the works of [23,1,5]. Our decisive factors show some overlapping with attributes used to select COTS in [23] (see section 3.1 in this paper).…”

“…However, we have been motivated by the works of [23,1,5]. Our decisive factors show some overlapping with attributes used to select COTS in [23] (see section 3.1 in this paper). We can also place our decisive factors within a quality features tree, given in Figure 3 from [1], where a knowledge based system has been developed in order to support COTS-based software development.…”

“…We compared our decisive factors with the COTS/OSS product's characterisation attributes from [23], aiming to enrich our list of decisive factors. It did not happen, because we believe that some of the attributes found in their work are not crucial for COTS/OSS product's identification and selection.…”

“…One of the most important issues, shared by both the COTS and OSS communities, is centred on COTS/OSS product acquisition [25], problems and risks of selecting them [23], and processes for evaluating them [10].…”

Evaluating components in the context of use

“…More recently, Torchiano et al, [12] suggest a set of evaluative objectives and qualitative attributes to assess the appropriateness of COTS components relative to a given set of requirements. Their suggestions allow for the possibility that under-defined requirements may themselves undergo change driven by the capabilities of COTS components being considered.…”