Component Certi cation

|Component-Based Software Engineering relies on sources of reliable components: developers need to be able to trust the components with which they build larger systems. This has led to suggestions[1] that software certi cation laboratories should undertake the role of checking reliability of components o ered for sale. This paper argues that is it more e ective for developers to supply the test certi cates in a standard, portable form, allowing purchasers to examine and run the test sets themselves and thus to form an opinion as to whether the component will meet their needs or not. By removing necessarily expensive third-party certi cation exercises, one of the major potential economic bene ts of CBSE { the ability to build a complex system from inexpensive, but trusted, components will be retained.