The Challenge of Software Maintenance Costing

Software is already a critical element of most DOD and Air Force weapon systems and its role is increasing. From a resources point of view, its acquisition cost is growing as a percentage of the system cost, while its maintenance cost can be many times its acquisition cost. This project addressed the critical area of software cost estimation and in particular, software maintenance estimation. At this point in time software cost estimation is not well understood. A number of approaches, techniques, and models are available. This study attempted to evaluate techniques for software, and software maintenance, costing. The various proposed techniques are reviewed, with prior evaluations summarized. The report ends with a select bibliography of published work in the area and a selection of definitions. KR