Software Evolutionary Dynamics Modelled as the Activity of an Actor-Network

The pressures which act on a software system over its life from inception to retirement are many and varied. It is an important goal in considering software evolvability to understand, and if possible to manage these influences. Our previous simulations of software evolution processes have concentrated on capturing the human-related aspects of software evolution, whilst effectively treating technical entities as objects which are acted on by humans and their organisations. Latour?s actor-network theory (ANT) suggests that the non-human entities - development tools, document, the system itself - are potentially active participants in their own evolution. We describe Latour?s theory, and present a model of a software evolution process in the form of a diagram which places technical and human aspects in juxtaposition closer to that which ANT would suggest than previous models. We believe that this approach will result in a more accurate representation of the process, and thus be a step towards dynamic simulation models whose predictive power will help us to better understand and manage software evolution and evolvability.