Platform-Dependent (Cost) Impacts on Portability, Software Reuse and Maintenance

Issues of portability, software reuse and maintenance are mostly considered as a matter of the software under development. This paper focuses on the impacts imposed by the software platforms on which the software is developed and executed, e.g. problems introduced by new tool versions or when moving to another tool or platform. Such problems arise because interfaces are changed, are not (fully) compatible or work-arounds for bugs had temporarily to be implemented. They are causing a lot of additional effort, costs and scheduling delays which cannot be estimated in advance. Also, it is nearly impossible to protect against such risks by development standards and guidelines at reasonable costs. As the use of Un*x 1 -based platforms based like Linux is steadily increasing, it is of high importance that decisions on the interface of such platforms are carefully done and potential impacts on users are considerd in advance. This paper wants to address the principal problems and to motivate for activities towards higher interface stability and conformity.