A Novel Software Trustworthiness Evaluation Strategy via Relationships between Criteria

Software trustworthiness evaluation is regarded as a multi-criteria decision-making problem. However, most current software trustworthiness evaluation methods do not consider the relationships between criteria. In this paper, we present a software trustworthiness evaluation strategy via the relationships between criteria. Because the trustworthy attribute degree is evaluated by a criterion, a trustworthy attribute measurement method based on fuzzy theory is first proposed, and the relationships between criteria are described by cooperative and conflicting degrees between criteria. Then, a measure formula for the symmetric substitutivity between criteria is proposed, and the cooperative degree between criteria is taken as the approximation of the symmetric substitutivity between criteria. With the help of the symmetric substitutivity between criteria, the software trustworthiness measurement model obtained by axiomatic approaches is applied to aggregate the degree to which each optional software product meets each objective. Finally, the candidate software products are sorted according to the trustworthiness aggregation results, and the optimal product is obtained from the alternative software products on the basis of the sorting results. The theoretical rationality of the measurement model is validated by proving that it satisfies the desirable properties of software trustworthiness measures, and its effectiveness is demonstrated through a case study.