Fraunhofer IESE Participating in European Open Source Quality Offensive

As one of eight consortium partners, Fraunhofer IESE provides support for the European project QualOSS – Quality of Open Source Software. Its subject is a quality evaluation system for Open Source software. It includes a methodology that has been exhaustively validated empirically, as well as appropriate tools for automated quality evaluation. The project has an overall volume of almost 3 million euros and is initially scheduled to run until 31 March 2009.

The project QualOSS - Quality of Open Source Software, which is funded in the context of the European Union’s 6th Framework Program (grant number: 033547, IST-2005-2.5.5) aims at developing a kind of “quality seal” for Open Source software. Based on the evaluation via QualOSS, users of software systems shall be enabled to easily determine to which degree a certain Open Source solution fulfills selected requirements. Especially non-functional quality requirements such as robustness and reliability are targeted. Thus, QualOSS also analyzes factors such as the activity of the developer community of an Open Source solution, since this has direct consequences for the long-term usability of the software being developed. The first phase of the project has already been concluded; important decision-making criteria from industry and appropriate assessment tools are thus available.

QualOSS combines a total of eight European research and industrial partners from Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Spain in one network. Fraunhofer IESE as an independent expert on professional software quality management and software testing contributes its proven competence regarding the measurement-based evaluation of software and systems to the project. “The strategic importance of Open Source software is increasing in many companies and administrations. Based on lessons learned in the context of our collaboration in QualOSS, we can provide companies with even more systematic support in the selection of Open Source software”, says Dr. Jürgen Münch, division manager for quality management at Fraunhofer IESE.

More and more often, the use of Open Source software is seen as an alternative to proprietary software. The advantages are obvious: On the one hand, Open Source software is available in a modifiable form and can be adapted to the needs of the user organization. On the other hand, Open Source software offers plenty of functionality at relatively moderate purchasing costs, functionality that otherwise would have to be developed by the company itself or would have to be bought at a high price from proprietary sources. However, the use of Open Source software entails specific risks. This is especially true regarding deployment maturity issues and future sustainability, but also legal aspects such as warranty or licensing issues. Thus, such criteria should be evaluated with regard to concrete company goals in order to deploy Open Source software with as much profit and as little risk as possible.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE

Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern currently has about 200 employees who perform research in the areas of software development, software quality management, and software competence management. Together with its sister institute in the USA, Fraunhofer IESE offers processes, methods, and techniques for developing software-based systems according to engineering-style principles. In doing so, it follows an empirical approach: Through proven, innovative solutions, products based on software can be brought to the market with a measurably higher degree of efficiency.

The customers of Fraunhofer IESE come from domains where products are dominated by software: automotive and transportation systems, telecommunications, telematics and service providers, medical systems, as well as information systems and applications in the public sector. The institute provides support to companies of any size – from international corporations to small and medium-sized enterprises. The public sector also plays an important role as a project partner.

Fraunhofer IESE, which was founded in 1996, is directed by Prof. Dieter Rombach and Prof. Peter Liggesmeyer. It is one of 56 institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which, as the largest applied research organization in Europe, contributes to national and international competitiveness.

Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering IESE
Fraunhofer-Platz 1
67663 Kaiserslautern
Germany
Phone 49 (0) 631 6800-0
Fax 49 (0) 631 6800-1099
info@iese.fraunhofer.de
www.iese.fraunhofer.de

Press contact:
Dr. rer. nat. Frank Seelisch
Head of Public Relations
Phone 49 (0) 631 6800-1002
Fax 49 (0) 631 6800-1099
frank.seelisch@iese.fraunhofer.de

This release was published on openPR.