Software Aging

Deterioration in the availability of OS resources, data corruption and numerical error accumulation.
Potential fault conditions gradually accumulating over time leading to either performance degradation or transient failures or both.

Manifestation of Aging

Performance degradation, crash/hang failure.

Causes

Memory bloating or leaks
Unreleased file-locks
Data corruption
Storage space fragmentation
Accumulation of round off errors

Some Examples

Netscape, xrn, Windows 95, Patriot Missile Defense System.