A market-driven architecture for software engineering standards

Abstract

The development and maintenance of quality software involves the effective use of software engineering standards. The development of national and international software engineering standards began in the early 1970s. Since that time more than 300 standards have been developed. From a user's perspective, there is duplication, inconsistencies, overlap and omissions. In the 1980s the two major international standards organizations formed a joint technical committee on information technology to deal with a range of standards including those for software. A market-driven architecture for software engineering standards has been developed to: guide the development and organization of international software engineering standards; position those standards in relation to standards for quality systems (ISO 9000 series) and system-related standards dependability (IEC TC56), safety-critical (IEC SC65A), and security (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC27); and promote the adoption of software engineering standards in the marketplace.