A Comparative Analysis of Open Source Software Reliability
The purpose of this study is to compare the fitting (goodness-of-fit) and prediction capabilities of three reliability models using the failure data of five popular Open Source Software (OSS) products. The failure data are modeled by Weibull and two other Non Homogenous Poisson Process (NHPP) models (Yamada S-Shaped and Schneidewind). The OSS products considered are Eclipse, Apache HTTP Server 2, Firefox, MPlayer OS X, and ClamWin Free Antivirus. Weibull is chosen due to its popularity in lifetime and its flexibility in modeling various distributions. On the other hand, among many software reliability models, the NHPP models are prevalent. The goodness-of-fit is based on the entire failure data collected.