1).
"Software reliability is the application of statistical techniques to data collected during system development and operation to specify, predict, estimate, and assess the reliability of software-based systems" (DACS, 2001, p. 1).
"Software reliability is the probability that a given software operates failure free for a specified time, on the machines for which it was designed, given that it was used within the design limits, conditioned that the last failure occurred at a given time" (Kapur & Garg, 1999, p. 18).
"Software reliability is a quantitative measurement expressed in errors per thousand source lines of executable code delivered" (Burch, 1992, p. 838).
"Reliability: a quality generally associated with a system's availability but also indicative of other things in specific contexts, such as having a system operative at the scheduled time, having system failure occur gracefully, and having a quick recovery time" (Shan & Earle, 1998, p. 384).
"Software reliability is the probability of failure-free operation of a program for a specified time under a specified set of operating conditions" (Marciniak, 1994, p. 1233).
Why is software reliability an issue?
"The problems we face are correctly translating the physical representation into its virtual representation," he said. "Because decisions are made on the basis of the information we receive from this virtual representation of reality, it is important that the hardware and software doing the translation be as reliable as possible" (Cole, 1997, p. 71).
"Conceptually, weighting the defects makes sense because customers perceive quality in terms of severity as well as frequency of problems…. Weighting the defects provides more stable results for use in predicting completion times" (Foody, 1995, p. 35).
"A recent, highly visible example of software unreliability was the explosion of an Ariane 5 rocket on its maiden flight. This rocket self-des...