A Decade of Reverse Engineering at Fraunhofer IESE – The Changing Role of Reverse Engineering in Applied Research

Abstract

The Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) recognized reverse engineering as an essential competence and thus has been active in the field since 1996, which is right from its beginning. The role of reverse engineering, however, within the institute changed over time. Since Fraunhofer IESE is an applied research institute its competencies are tailored to the market to be and stay attractive to industry. This paper analyzes the evolution of the competence reverse engineering in retrospective and derives a picture of the role and importance of reverse engineering to practice in the last ten years where reverse engineering moved from a set of techniques applied in pure reengineering project to an enabling technology for other software engineering disciplines. Furthermore, we present our vision for the future role of reverse engineering at Fraunhofer IESE, as a supportive technology for the development of software, which gives constant and continuous feedback already at construction time.