COTS-Based Software Systems 4th International Conference, ICCBSS 2005, Bilbao, Spain, February 7-11, 2005, Proceedings

The theme “Build and Conquer” chosen for this year’s conference fully represents what we (the organizers) want to put across to the software community: software development is an engineering discipline, and not an artistic expression. Once we are ready to “build” our software systems using pieces previously builtin (similar to any other technology manufacturer), we will be able to “conquer” the software engineering process. If we take a look at other engineering disciplines such as car manufacturing, house appliances or aeronautics, we see that the final products are built through the integration of multiprovider commercial components. These components are successfully integrated and constitute an important part of the final product. Most software-related organizations still build software from scratch, omitting thousands of ready-built commercially available software components that could be used very effectively during the development phase. This year ICCBSS moves to Europe for the first time since the first conference took place in Orlando, FL, USA in 2002. The conference scope has enlarged over the years to include the Open Source community and Web Services technologies. The reason for this is that I believe both are considered components-off-the-shelf, so many of the characteristics of COTS are also applied to Open Source and Web Services. Due to this, we will enjoy the presence of keynote speakers and researchers presenting on these two topics for the first time.