A basis for evaluation of commercial software

The genesis of this paper lies in our observation that there are almost as many perspectives on the topic of software evaluation as there are evaluation techniques. Is this diversity an inherent characteristic of software evaluation itself, or is it reflective of the confusion found in an immature discipline? We believe that both are substantially true. In this paper we first state why we believe the conceptual space of software evaluation is so broad. We then develop some basic principles that provide structure and boundaries to this conceptual space. Although these principles apply to the evaluation of commercial-off-the-shelf software in particular, we believe they have relevance to the topic of software evaluation in general. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.