The Economics of Software Quality

Chapter 1. Defining Software Quality and Economic Value

Introduction

This book deals with two topics that have been ambiguous and difficult to pin down for many years: software quality and economic value.

The reason for the ambiguity, as noted in the Preface, is that there are many different points of view, and each point of view has a different interpretation of the terms. For example, software quality does not mean the same thing to a customer as it does to a developer. Economic value has a different meaning to vendors than it has to consumers. For vendors, revenue is the key element of value, and for consumers, operational factors represent primary value. Both of these are discussed later in the book.

By examining a wide spectrum of views ...