An Empirical Study of the Reliability of UNIX Utilities (1990)

This study examined the reliability of UNIX utilities using empirical testing procedures. The authors tested roughly 90 different utility programs on seven versions of UNIX, including a commercial version. The paper presents the tools used to test the UNIX programs, the tests, the results, and an analysis of the results. The authors, using the tools and testing procedures described, were able to crash more than 24 percent of the UNIX utility programs. The authors point out that the study is important because (1) it uncovers a large set of bugs that could be corrected, (2) it provides a means of identifying programming practices that could cause bugs or security holes, and (3) it simulates real crashes that could occur because of careless typing, noisy input, or noisy phone lines. A good portion of the paper discusses common mistakes made by programmers that caused the utilities to fail. This paper is a good example of how relatively simple techniques can uncover significant results. Because of the pervasive use of UNIX and the diverse set of environments examined in this study, many readers can benefit by the analysis of UNIX utility reliability. Tables included in the paper give specific names of utilities that failed; the analysis suggests reasons for the failures. -"Brett D. Fleisch"

KMyMoney a QA case study

Here we go... We all need to manage or at least have a clearer picture of our daily expenses... Products are available in the market such as MS Money and Quicken...
KMyMoney is one of the Open Source alternatives, it intends to provide all major features found in the commercially-available, personal finance management tools. KMyMoney is non only aimed at being as complete as those commercially products but is also interested in being convivial to non-technical users. Now KMyMoney uses the concept of double entry for accuracy purposes.
The team behind it is working hard on improving the present version, QA is of course an issue for them ..
It'll be good to monitor the way KMyMoney project grows on a QA perspective..
For more information and for the follow up..here is your link http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net

The main purpose of this Blog

The main purpose of Quality Open Source Blog is to engage people like you in discussions on the growing challenge of Open Source Quality Assurance and look at the best ways to advance and improve methodologies and to determine the best practices.

As Open Source solutions continue to evolve at an amazing pace, the ways in which quality assurance and testing are conducted must keep the same pace to avoid the fate of becoming obsolete , it is a fact that end users world wide are seeking Open source software that are reliable and secure, hence of High Quality.

I believe that marketing Open Source is no longer the pressing issue, but rather QA as the Open Source marketplace matures, and is gaining momentum .

With your involvement , I hope to explore these and many other questions facing the Open source industry software development.

Thanks for your time ;)

Now, this is something...
In this rather very informative work, to do not say heavily informative if this makes any sense at all, Dr Jared Diamond shows how today's world has been shape the way we know it today is due to geographical and environmental . This is why based upon Dr Diamond arguments our elders who had a head start in food production advanced a way beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed rules and regulations, and then germs and weapons of war appeared. Our elder decided then to go and see what was going else where so they started an amazing adventure crossing lands seas, and oceans, it resulted in conquest of less developed populations . Dr Jared keeps on going in its wonderful trip in time to make us understand human societies.

I will once in a while share with you the titles of the books I have recently enjoyed reading.

Massive change, by Bruce Mau, is a very interesting one.. especially if you are the kind of person who likes to know a bit of every thing " an open minded, curious kind of person ", the book is divided into 11 heavily illustrated sections covering different areas of change from urbanism, to health and living, and wealth and politics
Massive Change is a set of interviews with a number of prominent scholars, scientists and thinkers on new inventions, technologies, and events affecting the human being worldwide. I find it some how provocative because it makes you think and eventually re-think and probably go see else where and come back :), you will probably experience the waw effect while exploring concepts affecting the design culture, defined as the "familiar objects and techniques that are transforming our lives."
Massive Change explores the changing force of design in the world, and in doing so expands the definition of design to include the environment, transportation technologies, revolutionary materials, energy and information systems, and living organisms.
ps: Check the graphic time line of significant inventions and world events from 10,000 B.C. to the present at the end of this wonderful piece of work.

Alright, I am about to start working on a project to investigate techniques and tools aimed at assuring open source software quality: my aim is to define the right methodology to detect defects in Open Source software, an then translating it into a working platform to design high-quality Open source software systems .

It is no more an utopia nor a rumor to say Open Source software is more and more playing a critical role in changing the old software business model, it is actually shifting the paradigm which has dominated the IT industry, hence nations' economies.

This growing phenomena is due to a range of factors, from socio-cultural to finance and technology itself. It has grown to a point where we no more hear about TCO ( Total Cost of Ownership) only but also about what is called ( Total Utility Ownership ) TUO, further more the concept of freedom of choice in a world where monopolies are no more accepted can only add more value to Open source, added to this it is a “ life” system completely open to criticism and improvement , Open source technologies will have a major impact in tomorrow' s IT world

I envision my project consisting of both an experimental and theoretical components.

The experimental part will help in defining , designing and building means for Open Source software quality improvement.

The theoretical aspect will be an extensive work of gathering information on the subject the summary of it will be used it defining the road map of this passionating project..

TBC