Reliability model of open source software considering fault introduction with generalized inflection S-shaped distribution

Abstract

Recently, the open source software (OSS) reliability has become one of hot issues. Owing to the uncertainty and complexity of OSS development, testing and debugging environments, OSS are completed dynamically. When detected faults are removed for OSS, they are likely to introduce new faults. Moreover, under the different OSS debugging environments, fault introduction will show different changes. For example, the fault introduction rate shows a decrease change, or increasing first and then decreasing change over time. Considering the complex and dynamic changes in fault introduction, an OSS reliability model that fault introduction obeys a generalized inflection S-shaped distribution is proposed in this paper. Experimental results indicate that the fitting and predictive performance of the proposed model is good. The established model in this paper can adapt the dynamical and complicated changes of fault introduction during OSS debugging. Moreover, the established model can accurately forecast the number of remaining faults in OSS, and assist developers to evaluate the actual OSS reliability.