Towards Reliable Component Software: Light-weight Formalism

The component software technology is a promising trend for rapid software development. However, one of the problems of software engineering is still inherited, which is the high cost of program verification. Moreover, not just the component, but also the composition of components is a subject for verification. In the direction of component software free-trade market, verification concerns become more important. A well defined formal foundation on component framework is required to solve it. We introduce a formal lightweight framework to analyse and verify the use of software component. We define some agreements on developing the component and its composition within a framework. By obeying those agreements, we argue that the verification cost, especially on progress property can be reduced. Some theorems that provide the judgement of those agreements are described. We first discuss how the underlying formalism is developed based on a variant of UNITY logic. This work reported in this extended abstract is part of an ongoing research. It contributes to a more reliable software product in the future.