Revisiting the concept of components in software engineering from a software ecosystem perspective
Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on Software Architecture: Companion Volume
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The idea of component based software systems has a longtradition in the field of software engineering. Componentmarkets have been an integral part of this idea. However,such markets can be found only rarely in practice, i.e.markets for software components still need to evolve. Theaim of this paper is to discuss the drivers and inhibitorsto the development of a software component industrywhich we consider as an important prerequisite forsoftware component markets. Based on an earlier pathmodel from a different author we present a model that istargeted at but not limited to the software industry andthat has the degree of modularity of an industry as it mostimportant dependent variable. The degree of modularityas assumed by the model is influenced mainly by fourfactors, i.e. domain complexity, customer influence,pressure towards a modular design and standards. Thefactors and the dimensions of the factor are discussed inthis paper. The model is discussed only theoretical.However, we plan to operationalize the factors and to testthe model empirically in a later stage.