Software Tag Standard 1.0-Background and DefinitionKatsuro Inoue
Department of Computer Science,
Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Osaka University
Inoue@ist.osaka-u.ac.jp
Abstract
In this paper, we present the definition and its
background of Software Tag Standard 1.0, which is aframework to maintain traceability and transparencyof software development/maintenance processes. Asoftware tag standard 1.0 is defined as a composite
data of 12 kinds of project information and 29 kinds ofprocess information. The overall scheme of software
tag has been determined with various requirementsfrom user side and vendor side.

1. Introduction
Quality and security concerns of the softwaresystems in Japan are increasing. Recently, we
frequently experienced system's troubles and society
confusion, so that the transparency and traceability ofsoftware development/maintenance processes havebeen strongly required.
Also, in these days, the development chains ofsoftware projects are becoming longer and longer, i.e.,a main contractor works with sub-contractors, and a
sub-contractor works with sub-sub-contractors, and soon. In addition, some of those (sub-)*contractors are
offshore developers. Such a situation generally reduces
visibility of the processes.
In the last position paper for ATGSE 2007, we haveproposed a scheme of software tag. A software tag iscomposite information of software project andsoftware process. Software users (purchasers) receive
software tags together with software products, andevaluate the quality of software products and processesof the target projects.
Figure 1 shows an overview of the usage ofsoftware tag. The user makes a contract of softwaresystem development with a vender, requiring not only
the final products, but also the software tag. The
vendor performs software development. During thedevelopment, they collect various kinds of empirical
data (process and product metrics, quality indicator,

raw products ...). The empirical data is used for theprocess improvement of the vendor itself. Also someof the empirical data are selected and processed as thesoftware tag for the user. In this paper, we show thesoftware tag standard 1.0 more in detail.

2. Software Tag Standard 1.0
In the software tag standard 1.0, a tag is composedof 41 tag elements, which are categorized into project
information and process information, as follows.

Project Information (12 in total)
Basic information (4)Project name, development organization, project
info., user info.
System information (2)System organization, system size
Development information (3)Development method, organization, project period
Project structure information (2)Super project info., sub project info.
Other (1)Supplemental annotation
Process Information (29 in total)
Requirement (3)User hearing, size, changeorderdevelopment datadelivervendoruser
softwareproducts

analysisfeedback

data collection

associatedTag

selected/processed

empirical
data

Figure 1 Overview of Software Tag Scheme

Design (3)Size, change, coverage of requirementCoding (3)Size, change, complexity
Test (4)Size, change, density, progress
Quality (8)Review status, review density, review efficiency,faults, collective actions for faults, fault density, test
efficiency, static checking
Work load (2)Consumed load, productivity
Plan and management (4)Process management, meeting, risk element, risk
hold time
Other products (2)Size, change
Each of these elements is described with a few
sentences and concrete examples.
We have selected various kinds of information,
which are considered important to the users. They
should not be too complicated for the user tounderstand, so we have tried to keep these as simple aspossible. Also, the balance of the tag elements is keptin mind. Tag elements which are computable fromother tag elements are not included in this standard.
We have referred to various kinds of standards andreports, including SWEBOK, CMMI, ISO/IEC15939,and SEC (Software Engineering Center in Japan)
report.
The definition process is based on the discussions
with industry collaborators of the vender side and userside, listed as follows.
Vendors:
Fujitsu Lab, Hitachi, NEC, SHARP, SRA Key-TechLab, Toshiba, NTT Data
Users:
Tokyo Stock Exchange, Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency, DENSOOthers:
IPA (Information Technology Promotion Agency,
Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, Japan),
Nara Institute of Science and Technology, OsakaUniversity

3. Usage Model of Software Tag
We can consider various usage models of software
tags. The following are typical ones of those.

orderdevelopment
data

delivervendoruser
softwareproduct

analysisfeedback

datacollection

select/process

associatedempirical
data

tag
inspect

inspect

software liability arbiter

Figure 2 Software Liability Arbitration Case
1. In contract-based development, the user uses thesoftware tag for the quality evaluation of products
and processes of the development, as mentioned inSection 2.
2. In the case of a legal dispute between the user andvendor, the software tag is used for evaluation ofuser and vender liability, as shown in Figure 2. If
there is no consensus between the user and vendor, asoftware liability arbiter will check the software tag
and its supporting empirical data, and determine theliability of the dispute.
3. In the case of choosing software components from asoftware repository, if the software products in therepository are associated with software tags, thedeveloper is able to evaluate the quality of theproducts, and to choose appropriate products.

4. Conclusion
We have presented the software tag standard 1.0.
Now we are developing tools to support empirical datacollection, analysis, and processing for this tagstandard. Also, we are promoting this standard, as thebasis of fair trade between software users and vendors,
including offshore developments.

Acknowledgement
This work is being conducted as a part of Stage Project,
the Development of Next Generation IT Infrastructure,
supported by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,Science and Technology. This work is the result ofdiscussions with many other project members andcollaborators. Author is grateful to those members andcontributors.