Software Configuration Management for a Reusable Software Library within a Software Maintenance Environment

Software Configuration Management and software reuse are now generally considered to be important technologies in software engineering. Both have been proposed for making a significant improvement in productivity and quality. However, these two technologies have been investigated separately. In order to make Software Configuration Management and reuse more effective, both approaches require to be introduced into a development or maintenance environment together. The authors have developed a process model for Maintenance with Reuse (MwR) to support Software Configuration Management for a reuse library within a maintenance environment. As software reuse and Software Configuration Management as well as software reuse and software maintenance have many similarities in their activities, and these areas can therefore be integrated within a software maintenance environment. An integrated approach to the common areas of these different activities will greatly contribute to the productivity and quality of software. This paper will address an integrated approach that can overcome some of the barriers that exist in software maintenance and reuse. A process model of an integrated approach has been created and validated using Process Weaver. In order for the reuse library to allow accesses from many potential reusers, the process model has been implemented on the WWW. The paper describes an integrated process model and its prototype to support change and version control for evolution of software components within both a reuse library and a legacy system.