Software evolution process framework

The importance and popularity of software evolution increases as more and more successful software systems become legacy systems. On the one hand, software evolution has become an important characteristic in the software life cycle. On the other hand, software process plays an important role to increase efficiency and quality of software evolution. Therefore, software evolution process, the inter-discipline of software process and software evolution, becomes a key area in software engineering. The framework of software evolution processes which consists of four levels is discussed. Each level has specified structures and different modeling requirements. According to characteristics of models at different levels, a top-down spiral meta-process for modeling software evolution processes is proposed. The meta-process includes six steps: communications, modeling at the global level, modeling at the process level, modeling at the activity level, modeling at the task level and efficiency improvement. Furthermore, a serni-formal procedure is proposed to model software evolution processes at the global level. Finally, a procedure of modelling at the global level is developed.