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International Conference on Conceptual Modeling

ER 2018: Conceptual Modeling pp 349–362Cite as

Towards an Ontology of Software Defects, Errors and Failures

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11157))

Abstract

The rational management of software defects is a fundamental requirement for a mature software industry. Standards, guides and capability models directly emphasize how important it is for an organization to know and to have a well-established history of failures, errors and defects as they occur in software activities. The problem is that each of these reference models employs its own vocabulary to deal with these phenomena, which can lead to a deficiency in the understanding of these notions by software engineers, potential interoperability problems between supporting tools, and, consequently, to a poorer adoption of these standards and tools in practice. We address this problem of the lack of a consensual conceptualization in this area by proposing a reference conceptual model (domain ontology) of Software Defects, Errors and Failures, which takes into account an ecosystem of software artifacts. The ontology is grounded on the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO) and is based on well-known standards, guides and capability models. We demonstrate how this approach can suitably promote conceptual clarification and terminological harmonization in this area.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The notion of vulnerability is frequently used in a way that is restricted to defects that can be exploited by attacks. We take a more general Risk Management view [25, 26] of vulnerabilities as dispositions that can be manifested by events that can hurt stakeholder’s goals [24] or diminish something’s perceived value [26].

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Acknowledgments

NEMO (http://nemo.inf.ufes.br) is currently supported by Brazilian research funding agencies CNPq (process 407235/2017-5), CAPES (process 23038. 028816/2016-41), and FAPES (process 69382549/2015).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ontology and Conceptual Modeling Research Group (NEMO), Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil

    Bruno Borlini Duarte, Ricardo A. Falbo, Giancarlo Guizzardi, Renata S. S. Guizzardi & Vítor E. S. Souza

  2. Conceptual and Cognitive Modeling Research Group (CORE), Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, Bolzano, Italy

    Giancarlo Guizzardi

Authors
  1. Bruno Borlini Duarte
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  2. Ricardo A. Falbo
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  3. Giancarlo Guizzardi
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  4. Renata S. S. Guizzardi
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  5. Vítor E. S. Souza
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vítor E. S. Souza .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lucentia, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain

    Juan C. Trujillo

  2. Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA

    Karen C. Davis

  3. Renmin University of China, Beijing, China

    Xiaoyong Du

  4. Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian, China

    Zhanhuai Li

  5. Department of Computer Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Tok Wang Ling

  6. Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, Beijing, China

    Guoliang Li

  7. National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Mong Li Lee

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Duarte, B.B., Falbo, R.A., Guizzardi, G., Guizzardi, R.S.S., Souza, V.E.S. (2018). Towards an Ontology of Software Defects, Errors and Failures. In: Trujillo, J., et al. Conceptual Modeling. ER 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11157. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00847-5_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00847-5_25

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