Towards A Software Failure Cost Impact Model for the Customer An Analysis of an Open Source Product

ABSTRACT While the financial consequences of software errors on the developer's side have been explored extensively, the costs arising for the end user have been largely neglected. One reason is the difficulty of linking errors in the code with emerging failure behavior of the software. The problem becomes even more difficult when trying to predict failure probabilities based on models or code metrics. In this paper we take a first step towards a cost prediction model by exploring the possibilities of modeling the financial consequences of already identified software failures. Firefox, a well-known open source software, is used as a test subject. Historically identified failures are modeled using fault trees. To identify costs, usage profiles are employed to depict the interaction with the system. The presented approach demonstrates the possibility to model failure cost for an organization using a specific software by establishing a relationship between user behavior, software failures, and costs. As future work, an extension with software error prediction techniques as well as an empirical validation of the model is aspired