Decision criteria for software component sourcing: An initial framework on the basis of case study results

Software developing organizations nowadays have a wide choice when it comes to sourcing software components. This choice ranges from developing or adapting in-house developed components via buying closed source components to utilizing open source components. This study aims at structured decision support in this type of decision. As a basis for this study an initial set of criteria is taken, that has been identified and validated in a particular software development environment in a previous study on the subject (Kusters et al, 2016). In the paper at hand we report on the results of the application and validation of the initial set of sourcing criteria in a completely different case study environment, namely a software environment in that. medical embedded software is being developed. In addition, and based on the outcomes of our case study, a further step is made towards structured decision support for sourcing decisions by the development of an initial sourcing criteria framework.