Study of the nonlinear imperfect software debugging model

• Fault introduction is a nonlinear changing process during the debugging phase.
• The assumption that the process of fault introduction is nonlinear is credible.
• Our proposed model can better fit and accurately predict software failure behavior.
• Research on fault introduction case is significant to software-intensive products.

In recent years there has been a dramatic proliferation of research on imperfect software debugging phenomena. Software debugging is a complex process and is affected by a variety of factors, including the environment, resources, personnel skills, and personnel psychologies. Therefore, the simple assumption that debugging is perfect is inconsistent with the actual software debugging process, wherein a new fault can be introduced when removing a fault. Furthermore, the fault introduction process is nonlinear, and the cumulative number of nonlinearly introduced faults increases over time. Thus, this paper proposes a nonlinear, NHPP imperfect software debugging model in consideration of the fact that fault introduction is a nonlinear process. The fitting and predictive power of the NHPP-based proposed model are validated through related experiments. Experimental results show that this model displays better fitting and predicting performance than the traditional NHPP-based perfect and imperfect software debugging models. S-confidence bounds are set to analyze the performance of the proposed model. This study also examines and discusses optimal software release-time policy comprehensively. In addition, this research on the nonlinear process of fault introduction is significant given the recent surge of studies on software-intensive products, such as cloud computing and big data.