Guest Editors' Introduction: Software Evolution

Evolving and maintaining software-intensive systems is critical, and, consequently, most developers are involved in maintaining, incrementally enhancing, and adapting existing systems. Many research groups are working in this research area of software evolution and producing a growing body of knowledge. This special issue brings the topic into the spotlight it deserves by providing a sample of industrially-relevant research results aimed at facilitating various aspects of software evolution. We hope that this will stimulate further consideration, awareness, and research into software evolution.