Modeling software maturity: A software life cycle management approach

Software is a digital form of solving problems we encounter in our daily life in whatever way ubiquitously. The understanding of products in terms of product life cycle management has been studied for about half of a century, and software as a special group of products may be applied. Further, software life cycle management has been undergoing studies within software engineering discipline for more than forty years. The question of how software life cycle management should be done is confronting us just as the same as forty years ago if not more urgently. This paper tries to address the question in a novel perspective in order to aid our understanding of software and to improve the productivity of creating software products. Based on the recent survey of state of the art software methodologies and technologies, this paper attempts to model software maturity by putting an emphasis on the importance of maintenance in software engineering. The intention here is to expose the misleading or unnecessary steps in separating the development from the maintenance of software products. It makes sense to view software as one life and one product in a holistic life cycle management approach.