Software maintenance is a much-maligned and misunderstood area of software engineering. Although systems have been maintained for years, relatively little is written about the topic. Funding for research is essentially nonexistent, and thus the academic researchers publish very little about software maintenance. Practitioners publish even less because of corporate fear of giving away the “competitive edge.” Whereas several books have been written specifically about software maintenance, only a few are suitable as textbooks. Further, periodicals address the topic infrequently.

This lack of publications contributes to the misunderstanding of software maintenance. This article attempts to provide a better appreciation of software maintenance by providing a historical perspective on maintenance and a discussion of current practices. Sections provide information which suggests that maintenance is more than fixing bugs or mistakes and is in fact performed prior to delivery of a software product. Finally, the article provides some insight into future directions of software maintenance.