Non-functional requirements for COTS software components

Abstract

Commercially available software components come with the built-in functionality often offering end-user more than they need. A fact that end-user has no or very little influence on component's functionality promoted nonfunctional requirements which are getting more attention than ever before. In this paper, we identify some of the problems encountered when non-functional requirements for COTS software components need to be defined. Keywords Requirements engineering, non-functional requirements, COTS software component 1 POSITION Non-functional requirements have been neglected by the requirements engineering practice and research for a long time. However, an increasing trend to build software systems from commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software components has highlighted the need to take non-functional requirements more seriously. Since end-user has no influence on the functionality provided by COTS software component there is little use in providing detailed functional requirement...