Generic criteria from QSOS version 1.6
Intrinsic durability
Maturity
less than 3 months
if between 3 months and 3 years
after 3 years
Unstable software with numerous releases or patches generating side effects
Stabilized production release existing but old. Difficulties to stabilize developpement releases
Stabilized software. Releases provide bug fixes corrections but mainly new functionalities
Software knows several problems which can be prohibitive
No know major problem or crisis
History of good management of crisis situations
Software is very likely to be forked in the future
Software comes from a fork but has very few chances of being forked in the future
Software has very little chance of being forked. It does not come from a fork either
Adoption by community and industry
Very few users identified
Detectable use on Internet
Numerous users, numerous references
None
Few refences, non critical usages
Often implemented for critical applications
No community or without real activity (forum, mailing list, ...)
Existing community with a notable activity
Strong community: big activity on forums, numerous contributors and advocates
No book about the software
Less than 5 books about the software are available
More than 5 books about software are available, in several languages
Organisation and leadership of developments
1 to 2 individuals involved, not clearly identified
Between 2 and 5 independent people
More than 5 people
Complete dictatorship
Enlightened despotism
Council of architects with identified leader (e.g: KDE)
Activity of the project and around the software
Less than 3 developers, not clearly identified
Between 4 and 7 developers, or more unidentified developers with important turnover
More than 7 developers, very stable team
Slow reactivity in forum or on mailing list, or nothing regarding bug fixes in releases note
Detectable activity but without process clearly exposed, loing reaction/resolution time
Strong reactivity based on roles and tasks assignment
No or few new functionalities
Evolution of the product driven by the core team or by user's request without any clearly explained process
Tool(s) to manage feature requests, strong interaction with roadmap
Very weak activity on both production and development releases
Activity on production and developmenet releases. Frequent minor releases (bug fixes)
Important activity with frequent minor releases (bugs fixes) and planned major releases relating to the roadmap forcast
Industrialization level of the project
Developments realized at 100% by employees of a single company
60% maximum
20% maximum
Services offering
No offer of training identified
Offer exists but is restricted geographically and to one language or is provided by a single contractor
Rich offers provided by several contractors, in serveral languages and split into modules of gradual levels
No offer of support except via public forums and mailing lists
Offer exists but is provided by a single contractor without strong commitment quality of services
Multiple service providers with strong commitment (e.g: guaranteed resolution time)
No offer of consulting service
Offer exists but is restricted geographically and to one language or is provided by a single contractor
Consulting services provided by different contractors in serveral languages
No user documentation
Documentation exists but shifted in time, is restricted to one language or is poorly detailed
Documentation always up to date, translated and possibly adapted to different target readers (end user, sysadmin, manager, ...)
Quality assurance process
No QA process
Identifies QA process but not much formalized and with no tool
Automatic testing process included in code's life-cycle with publication of results
No bug or feature request management tool
Standard tools provided (for instance by a hosting forge) but poorly used
Very active use of tools for roles/tasks allocation and progress monitoring
Packaging for various operating systems
Software can't be installed from source without lot of work
Installation from source is limited and depends on very strict conditions (OS, arch, lib, ...)
Installation from source is easy
The software is not packaged for Debian
A Debian package exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
The software is packaged in the distribution
The software is not packaged for FreeBSD
A port exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
A official port exists in FreeBSD
The software is not packaged for HP-UX
A package exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
A stable package is provided for HP-UX
The software is not packaged for MacOSX
A package exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
The software is packaged in the distribution
The software is not packaged for Mandriva
A package exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
The software is packaged in the distribution
The software is not packaged for NetBSD
A port exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
A official port exists in NetBSD
The software is not packaged for OpenBSD
A port exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
A official port exists in OpenBSD
The software is not packaged for RedHat/Fedora
A package exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
The software is packaged in the distribution
The software is not packaged for Solaris
A package exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support (e.g: SunFreeware.com )
The software is supported by Sun for Solaris
The software is not packaged for SuSE
A package exists but it has important issues or it doesn't have official support
The software is packaged in the distribution
The project can't be installed on Windows
A package exists but it is limited or has important issues or just cover some specific Windows release (e.g: Windows2000 and WindowsXP)
Windows is full supported and a package is provided
Exploitability level
Difficult to use, requires an in depth knowledge of the software functionality
Austere and very technical ergonomics
GUI including help functions and elaborated ergonomics
No administrative or monitoring functionalities
Existing, functionalities but uncomplete and or need improvement
Complete and easy-to-use administration and monitoring functionalities. Possible integration with external tools (e.g: SNMP, syslog, ...)
Technical adaptability
Monolithic software
Presence of hight level modules allowing a first level of software adaptation
Modular conception, allowing easy adaptation of the software by selecting or creating modules
Everything by hand
Recompilation possible but complex without any tools or documentation
Recompilation with tools (e.g: make, ANT, ...) and documentation provided
Any modification requires code recompilation
Architecture designed for static extension but requires recompilation
Principle of plugin, architecture designed for dynamic extension without recompilation
Project's strategy
License
Very strict license, like GPL
Moderate permissive license located between both extremes (GPL and BSD) dual-licensing depending on the type of user (person, company, ...) or their activities
Very permissive like BSD or Apache licenses
Very permissive like BSD or Apache licenses
Moderate permissive license located between both extremes (GPL and BSD), dual-licensing depending on the type of user (person, company, ...) or their activies
Very strict license, like GPL
Rights held by a few individuals or entities, making it easier to change the license
Rights held by numerous individuals owning the code in a homogeneous way, making relicense very difficult
Rights held by a legal entity in whom the community trusts (e.g: FSF or ASF)
No pratical way to propose code modification
Tools provided to access and modify code (like CVS or SVN) but not really used to develop the software
The code modification process is well defined, exposed and respected, based on roles assignment
No published roadmap
Existing roadmap without planning
Versionned roadmap, with planning and measure of delays
Software has no sponsor, the core team is not paid
Software has an unique sponsor who might determine its strategy
Software is sponsored by industry
No detectable strategy or strong dependency on one unique actor(person, company,sponsor)
Strategical vision shared with several other free and open source projects but without strong commitment from copyrights owners
Strong independence of the code team, legal entity holding rights, strong involvement in the standardization process
Native browser features
No bookmark features
Limited bookmark features
Comprehensive bookmark features (creation, edition, management, ...).
No download management
Limited download manager
Comprehensive and configurable download manager
No password management features
Limited features
Comprehensive password management features (storage, master password, ...)
No form management features
Limited form management features (for instance non persistent storage of user entries)
Comprehensive features (persistent storage, behaviour configuration, ...)
No spell cheking
Limited spell checking (in number of languages or dictionnary enhancement)
Features based on a complete and extensible spell checking framework
No search toolbar
Limited search features (for instance no choice in search engines)
Full search framework with ability to define and plug easily new search engines
Native accessibility features
Single window browsing
Limited tab browsing features (no tab relocation, no global view)
Full tab browsing features with tab relocation and global view of opened tabs
No pop-up blocking features
Limited features (for instance no ability to configure behaviour depending on websites)
Configurable pop-up blocking strategy
Find-as-you-type feature in non modal Search windows
No incremental finding features
Limited incremental findind features (no highlight or previous/next features for instance)
Comprehensive incremental finding features
Advertisement filtering (content or images)
No ad filtering
Limited ad filtering or depending on a third party product
Full ad filtering features
No possibility to zoom browsed pages
Limited zooming features (limited to text resizing)
Full browsing features (all page is zoomed in/ou)
Supported navigation modes
Ability to select HTML elemnst (links, input fields, ...) from keyboard shortcuts
No HTML access key features
Limited HTML access key features
HTML access key features natively available
Ability to navigate with TAB key
No tabbing navigation features
Limited tabbing navigation features or with a third party product
Tabbing navigation features natively available
Ability to navigate between focusable elements according to the spatial location
No spatial navigation features
Limited spatial navigation features or with a third party product
Spatial navigation features natively available
Ability to move a cursor in browsed pages
No caret navigation available
Limited caret navigation feature
Carte navigation mode natively available
Combination of mouse movements and clicks to trigger commands
No mouse gesture features
Limited features or with third party product
Mouse gesture mode natively available
Conversion of language text into speech
No text-to-speech features
Limited features or with third party product
Text-to-speech mode natively available
Speech recognition features
No voice control features
Limited features or with third party product
Voice control mode natively available
Web standards and technologies supported (except Javascript)
Cascading StyleSheet support
No CSS support
Old or limited CSS support
Full CSS2.1 support
No frame support
Limited frame support
Full frame support
No Java support
Limited Java support (for instance no possibility to change JRE)
Full Java support
Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations
No XSLT support
Limited XSLT support or with third party product
Full and native XSLT support
Extensible HyperText Markup Language
No XHTML support
Limited or old XHTML (1.0) support
Full XHTML 1.1 support
No MathML support
Limited support or via third party product
Full native MathML support
No XForms support
Limited XForms support
Full XForms support
No RSS support
Limited or old RSS (0.91 or 1.0) support
Full RSS 2.0 support
No Atom support
Limited or old Atom (0.91 or 1.0) support
Full Atom 1.0 support
Scalable Vector Graphics
No SVG support
Old (1.1), limited SVG support or via third party product
Full SVG 1.1 support
No VoiceXML support
Limited VoiceXML support (for iunstance only for recognition or synthesis)
Full VoiceXML support
Wireless Markup Language
No WML support
Limited WML support or via third party product
Full native WML support
Supported JavaScript technologies
No JavaScript support
Partial JavaScript support
Full JavaScript support
ECMA-262 specification compliance
No ECMAScript compliance
Partial or old ECMAScript (1 or 2) compliance
Full ECMAScript 3 compliance
Document Object Model Level 1 support
DOM 1 not supported
DOM 1 partially supported
Full DOM 1 support
Document Object Model Level 2 support
DOM 2 not supported
DOM 2 partially supported
Full DOM2 support
Document Object Model Level 3 support (except XPath)
DOM 3 not supported
DOM 3 partially supported
Full DOM 3 support
XML Path Language support
No XPath support
LImited or old XPath support
Full XPath support
XMLHttpRequest Object support
No XMLHttpRequest Object available
XMLHttpRequest Object available but with limitations (for instance no UNICODE support)
XMLHttpRequest Object available
Supported Internet protocols
Hypertext Transfer Protocol
No HTTP support
Old (1.0) or limited HTTP support
HTTP 1.1 support
File Transfer Protocol
No FTP support
Partial FTP support
Full FTP support
Network News Transfer Protocol
No NNTP support
Partial NNTP support
Full NNTP support
Secure Sockets Layer / Transport Layer Security support
No SSL or TLS support
Partial or old SSL/TLS support
TLS 1.1 support
Internationalized domain name
No IDN support
Partial IDN support
Full IDN support
RFC 2397 support: inclusion of small data items inline
data: URI scheme not supported
data: URI scheme partially supported
data: URI scheme fully supported
No BitTorrent support
Partial BitTorrent support or via third party product
Full native BitTorrent support
Supported image formats
Joint Photographic Experts Group image format
JPEG not supported
JPEG partially supported
JPEG fully supported
Graphics Interchange Format
GIF not supported
GIF partially supported
GIF fully supported
Portable Network Graphics
PNG not supported
PNG partially supported
PNG fully supported
Multiple-image Network Graphics
MNG not supported
MNG partially supported
MNG fully supported
Tagged Image File Format
TIFF not supported
TIFF partially supported
TIFF fully supported
Canvas element support (HTML extention standardized by the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group)
Canvas element not supported
Canvas element partially supported
Canvas element fully supported