Do the CMMI and the SW-CMM apply only to the software domain? What about development and maintenance?
Actually, the original name is SW-CMM (for “Software SW-CMM”). Therefore, it is obviously applicable to the software domain, in what it concerns to the development, as well as to the maintenance aspects. The specific methods (or methodologies) and technology (software or equipment) being used by a company or agency do not impose specific constraints on the use of the SW-CMM, since its practices are formulated in such a generic mode. Nevertheless, even if they have been initially oriented and worded for the software domain, some of them can be extrapolated beyond their original application and applied to other domains (not necessarily in the software domain). However, keep in mind that the SEI has originally oriented the practices described in the SW-CMM model to cover the software development and maintenance aspects. The SEI has created a family of models for the different domains based on the architecture of its first model: le SW-CMM. This is why we speak of the SW-CMMs (with an “s”)
