There is progress in software, though its doubling factor is much slower than hardware's.

Judge as of December 2002. The claim has two parts: (a) software is making progress; (b) its rate of improvement ('doubling factor') is much slower than that of hardware. True: evidence available around 2002 (studies of software productivity, algorithm performance or software capability) shows real software progress at a pace clearly slower than hardware's roughly 1–2-year doubling. Mostly true: both parts broadly hold, but some well-documented domains show software progress matching hardware. Mixed: the evidence is split, with substantial domains (for example linear programming or other algorithm benchmarks) showing algorithmic gains equal to or greater than hardware gains alongside others showing slower progress. Mostly false: software is progressing, but the best evidence shows its improvement generally comparable to or faster than hardware's. False: the evidence shows no meaningful software progress, or software progress clearly and generally faster than hardware's.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Wirth's law Wikipedia · 21 July 2005

   “or, colloquially, "software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster".”

2. E2 Wirth's law Wikipedia · 21 July 2005

   “It is a humorous and ironic observation that the speed of commercial software generally slows by 50% every 18 months, thereby negating all the benefits of Moore's law.”

3. E3 The Realities of Software Technology Payoffs cacm.acm.org (Communications of the ACM) · 31 August 2023

   “Yet there is little evidence of dramatic change in either the productivity of software developers, or the quality of the products they produce.”

4. E4 The Realities of Software Technology Payoffs cacm.acm.org (Communications of the ACM) · 31 August 2023

   “A recent study by Ed Yourdon and Howard Rubin reports, in fact, a 13% decline in productivity in recent years, and a quality increase of a substantial (but not dramatic) 75% for the 12 years since 1985.”

5. E5 The Realities of Software Technology Payoffs cacm.acm.org (Communications of the ACM) · 31 August 2023

   “Those bits of light suggest to us that most improvements to the software process offer modest advantages over traditional alternatives.”

The Communications of the ACM article cites a Yourdon/Rubin study that found a 13% decline in productivity in recent years and a 75% rise in software quality over the 12 years since 1985 [E4]. It also reports little sign of dramatic change in developer productivity [E3] and says most process improvements bring only modest gains [E5]. That is real but slow software progress, well below the hardware doubling every one to two years set out in the criteria. The same study reports a productivity decline [E4], the Wirth's law items are informal sayings, not measurements [E1, E2], and none of the evidence directly compares software and hardware improvement rates.