The QUALOSS project will particularly improve the quality of software products and seriously increase productivity of software development. Both improvements will support a competitive position of the software industry.

This higher competitiveness is to be addressed by providing a reliable assessment method of open source software in order to integrate them into industrial software. This will ease the integration of high quality level open source components, and increase the productivity.

In the section 1.1. of the 2005-2006 Work Programme, it is noted that for the economy, ICT are central to boosting productivity and improving the competitiveness of all businesses and industries. The ICT industry itself is one of Europe's largest economic sectors, and ICT innovations underpin progress in all other major science fields. The QUALOSS project will improve the productivity of the software industry by providing a means to integrate robust, evolvable, and free software components. This will provide a serious competitive advantage to SMEs which use the QUALOSS assessment methodology.

Furthermore, in the Section 1.1, in the public sector, ICT enable services to be delivered more efficiently, as well as new services that correspond to people's evolving needs. In Europe, there are many countries which adopt FLOSS solutions to reduce their costs (France, Germany, Belgium and Spain). So, there is a strong interest in implementing FLOSS solutions amongst the public sector.

Therefore, providing them with an assessment methodology of FLOSS components will ease their integration into their own developments.

As previously mentioned, we address the integration of technology components into systems and platforms (Section 1.8 An integrated approach). Indeed, the QUALOSS project is precisely addressing the technology component integration. We will propose a new assessment methodology of FLOSS components in order to integrate them into other systems.

In Section 1.9 of the 2005-2006 Work Programme, The participation of SMEs in IST research activities is essential given their role in promoting innovation in this field. SMEs play a vital role in the development and nurturing of new visions in IST and transforming them into business assets. A significant involvement of SMEs is expected, both as suppliers and as users of knowledge and technologies. Four SMEs (AdaCore, CETIC, ZEA) contribute to the QUALOSS project acting as technology user, but also as innovative actors with a strong expertise in relevant domains (FLOSS, Software Measurement, Quality Models).