The goal of QoSA is to addressaspects of softwarearchitecturefocusing broadly on quality characteristics and how these relate to the design of software arc- tectures. Speci?c issues of interest are de?ning quality measures, evaluating and managing architecture quality, linking architecture to requirements and imp- mentation, and preserving architecture quality throughout the lifetime of the system. Past themes for QoSA include Architectures for Adaptive Software S- tems (2009), Models and Architecture (2008), and Software Architecture, C- ponents, and Applications (2007). In this, the sixth incarnation of QoSA, researchers and practitioners dem- strated how speci?c sub-elements within an architecture lead to measurable quality in the implemented system. While clear challenges remain, the theme for QoSA 2010 was"Research into Practice - Reality and Gaps. " Therewere32submissionstoQoSA2010fromwhichtheProgramCommittee selected 11 long papers, for an acceptance rate of 34%.
To further foster collaborationandexchangeofideaswiththecomponent-basedsoftwareengine- ing community, QoSAwasheldaspart ofthe conferenceseriesFederatedEvents on Component-based Software Engineering and Software Architecture (COMPARCH). These federated events wereQoSA 2010,the 13th International Symposium on Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE 2010), the 15th International Workshop on Component-Oriented Programming (WCOP 2010), and the First International Symposium on Architecting Critical Systems (ISARCS 2010), a symposium dedicated to dependability, safety, security and testing/analysis for architecting systems. Because of the close relationship - tween the CBSE and QoSA communities, COMPARCH 2010 once again in- gratedthesetechnicalprogramstofurtherpromotediscussionandcollaboration. We would like to thank the QoSA Steering Committee and the members of theProgramCommitteefor their dedicatedandvaluableworkduringthe review process. We thank Alfred Hofmann from Springer for his continuing support in reviewing and publishing this proceedings volume.