Laws of Software Evolution Revisited

Data obtained during a 1968 study of the software process [8] led to an investigation of the evolution of OS/360 [13] and and, over a period of twenty years, to formulation of eight Laws of Software Evolution. The FEAST project recently initiated (see sections 4–6 below) is expected to throw additional light on the phenomenology underlying these laws, to increase understanding of them, to explore their finer detail, to expose their wider relevance and implications and to develop means for their beneficial exploitation. This paper is intended to trigger wider interest in the laws and in the FEAST study of feedback and feedback control in the context of the software process and its improvement to ensure beneficial exploitation of their potential.

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