A quality-model-based approach for describing and evaluating software packages

Selection of software packages from user requirements is currently a central task in software engineering. Selection of inappropriate packages may compromise some business processes and may interfere negatively in the functioning of the involved organization. Success of package selection is currently endangered because of many factors, being one of the most importants the absence of structured descriptions of both the package features and the user quality requirements. In this paper, we propose a methodology for describing the quality factors of software packages using the ISO/IEC quality standard as framework. Following this standard, relevant attributes for a specific software domain are identified and structured as a hierarchy, and metrics for them are chosen. Software packages in this domain can be then described in a uniform and comprehensive way. Therefore, selection of packages can be ameliorated by transforming user quality requirements into requirements expressed in terms of the quality model attributes. We illustrate the approach by presenting in some depth a quality model for the mail servers domain.