How the Hidden Hand Shapes the Market for Software Reliability
📜 Abstract
This paper examines the market for software reliability, specifically looking at how market forces shape the reliability characteristics of commercially produced software systems. We characterize the impact of market structure on reliability as an efficiency-game and highlight the role that software producers expect pricing structures to play in signaling market demands for reliability. Using an agency theory framework, we describe incentive alignment techniques that could help software developers to internalize some of their product's reliability costs.
✨ Summary
The paper, “How the Hidden Hand Shapes the Market for Software Reliability,” analyzes the interplay between market forces and software reliability outcomes through the lens of economic principles. By applying an agency theory framework, the authors identify techniques to align incentives between developers and end-users to enhance software reliability. Though the paper was published in 2000, it highlights perennial issues in the software market such as the impact of market structures on system dependability and how economic incentives significantly influence software design priorities.
In conducting a brief review, no direct contemporary research or industry publications citing this paper were discovered. However, its insights into economic incentives and market structure potentially contribute to the broader discourse on software dependability and reliability engineering, aspects that remain central to current distributed systems and economic policy analysis for technology markets.