Towards a Theory of Interoperability of Software Systems

Interoperability is a property of software quality that is related to the cooperation between software systems for exchanging information. However, this concept is not well explained or understood. A theory would be useful to explain interoperability in terms of its essential elements and propositions. Theoretical contributions of interoperability are intended to formalize this concept by using common frameworks, models, and meta-models. However, tentative contributions developed in the past have failed to propose a theory of interoperability due to four reasons: (1) a disunified vocabulary is used, (2) the essential elements for describing interoperability are not well identified, (3) only a single level of interoperability is assessed, and (4) interoperability principles are not well formalized. This paper tentatively proposes an axiomatic theory of interoperability as a complementary approach to the existing knowledge. The proposed theory seeks to better formalize the concepts of interoperability and suggest actions aimed at establishing interoperability. After a brief review of related works and the state of the art, a set of axioms and propositions is presented. This theory is evaluated by a group of experts, and an example is presented to illustrate its use. Conclusions and future works are outlined at the end of the paper.