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Definitions[]

General[]

Maintenance is

Any act that either prevents the failure or malfunction of equipment or restores its operating capability.[1]
[a]ction necessary to retain or restore an item to a specified condition.[2]

Hardware[]

Maintenance is "the servicing of the machine in order to make it work in accordance with its original specifications and any changes to those specifications authorized for that machine. . . ."[3]

[T]he term 'maintenance' has a much broader temporal connotation [than 'repair']. The Senate Report on section 117 characterized 'maintenance' as including 'checking the proper functioning of [ ] components.' . . . Thus, maintenance, or 'servicing,' was meant to encompass monitoring systems for problems, not simply fixing a single, isolated malfunction."[4]

Information[]

See Maintenance of information

Software[]

Software maintenance (also program maintenance) is

[t]he modification of a software product, after delivery, to correct faults, to improve performance or other attributes, or to adapt the product to a changed environment.[5]
[t]he process of altering program code or instructions to meet new or changing requirements.[6]

References[]

See also[]

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