Common concept apparatus within corrective software maintenance

Abstract

Software engineering is the fastest growing field of engineering today. Due to this revolutionary development, many conflicts have arisen when defining and using new concepts. This has involved the need for standards, such as the IEEE standard. Despite this, there is still nonuniformity in the use of standard definitions. This could be due to the fact that most of the standard definitions are expressed in natural language. Furthermore, ambiguity may arise when relating some of these concepts to other concepts. We propose a conceptual model of the basic concepts utilised within corrective software maintenance. The goal is to clarify the fundamental concept apparatus. This model should constitute a common forum for communication when conceptualising software problems and defects, and for suggesting maintenance frameworks, models and/or measures.