The author of this paper applies the perspective of standardization to the subject of software reuse, with explicit considerations for dependability. The paper reports on work on a pre-standard publicly available specification from the International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC/PAS 62814, and describes how the specification is intended to be used.

The explanation of the content of the standard is useful, given that the full text of the standard is only available commercially, but the primary value of the paper is in the systematic treatment of reuse. Two frameworks are elaborated, build-for-reuse and build-by-reuse, which address the process and artifacts involved. Issues of validation and reliability are elaborated, and the author discusses how standards advance the reuse of code by applying dependability techniques.

This paper provides an outline of the standard itself and describes what is in it, but reading it is not a substitute for reading the whole standard (especially the appendices, which should be quite interesting for practicing developers). The paper is mainly of interest to software architects.