Software Engineering Institute

Developing software systems that are composed in total or in part from software components over which the developer has little control presents difficulties not yet addressed by component-based software engineering research. Among the problems associated with such component-based development is the potential for a component developer to misrepresent the quality of components. It is therefore paramount that some means of achieving of trust be established between component developers and component users. We are developing a model for the component marketplace that supports prediction of system properties prior to component selection. In this paper we describe the model, and describe two possible forms that the model may take in order to establish trust among participants in component-based design. We discuss the pros and cons of each choice, and leave the topic open for further discussion.