Predicting of Open Source Software Component Reusability Level Using Object-Oriented Metrics by Taguchi Approach

Abstract

Component-based software development (CBSD) is an efficient approach used by software developers to develop new software. The commercial off the shelf (COTS) and open-source software (OSS) are two styles to implement CBSD. The COTS provides the interface and depicts the black-box behavior, but does not support several software quality characteristics. On the other hard, OSS is a more efficient approach compared to COTS due to its source code availability. This research aims to identify the reusability level of OSS components from an online repository of OSS. The OSS components are classified based on Chidamber and Kemerer reusability metrics (CK-metrics). This paper proposed a mathematical model to establish the relationship between the reusability of CK-metrics. Reusability level of OSS component has been measured and most effective CK-metrics obtained by applying the Taguchi design and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The input parameters for the experimental design are evaluated based on the OSS repository. Performance analysis has been carried out based upon the interaction effect between the reusability of CK-metrics. Main effect plots are created to identify the most reusable component of the OSS. The genetic algorithm (GA) is used to predict the optimized value of the different control parameters. The results indicate that the OSS component reusability level is 0.698194. The reusability of software has a significant effect on the quality of software. The quality of software can be improved by increasing the reusability of software components.