Analyzing existing software for software reuse

Abstract This paper describes an automated method to support analysis of existing software at the start of a systematic reuse initiative. By determining a baseline level of informal reuse, this method can be used to help identify promising domains for initial implementation of systematic reuse and provide information that may affect calculation of return on investment in reuse. It can also be used in conjunction with domain analysis to help identify ideas for reusable components. The method draws on techniques developed for detecting plagiarized student programs. The paper presents results of three case studies that used a prototype tool called SoftKin to test this approach on commercial application software. The case studies indicate that the results from plagiarism detection transfer nicely to the task of analyzing existing software for reuse.