Cost Implications of Software Commonality and Reuse

Commonality of requirements and reuse of code are two properties of software systems which can potentially reduce development and maintenance costs. This paper provides a possible definition for commonality and reuse and analyzes their impact on maintenance and replacement cost estimations based on the software engineering literature. Eventually, research questions are formulated to guide the empirical analysis through software evolution trees, a tool which is proposed to formalize the different vertical and horizontal changes that a software system can undergo