Sustainability and Longevity: Two Sides of the Same Quality?

This paper attempts to shed light on the relationships between the concerns of sustainability and longevity in software and requirements engineering. Disciplines related to longevity of information and of systems can bring interesting ideas and perspectives to the discussion of sustainability. At the same time, sustainability clearly is a crucial component and critical success factor in determining an actual system’s longevity. While many isolated techniques exist, the various definitions of sustainability are not all aligned, and clarity on the concepts is needed to move forward. We argue that it is crucial to consider sustainability not just in the sense of lean software, green computing and functional requirements for improving environmental sustainability, but also consider how it applies to the systems under design in a holistic perspective. We discuss possible relationships and synergies and outline a set of research questions for sustainability as a design concern.