Requirements as Goals and Commitments too Amit K. Chopra, John Mylopoulos, Fabiano Dalpiaz, Paolo Giorgini and Munindar P. Singh Abstract In traditional software engineering research and practice, requirements are classified either as functional or non-functional. Functional requirements con- sist of all functions the system-to-be ought to support, and have been modeled in terms of box-and-arrow diagrams in the spirit of SADT. Non-functional require- ments include desired software qualities for the system-to-be and have been de- scribed either in natural language or in terms of metrics. This orthodoxy was chal- lenged in the mid-90s by a host of proposals that had a common theme: all requirements are initially stakeholder goals and ought to be elicited, modeled and analyzed as such. Through systematic processes, these goals can be refined into specifications of functions the system-to-be needs to deliver, while actions as- signed to external actors need to be executed. This view is dominating Require- ments Engineering (RE) research and is beginning to have an impact on RE prac- tice. We propose a next step along this line of research, by adopting the concept of conditional commitment as companion concept to that of goal. Goals are inten- tional entities that capture the needs and wants of stakeholders. Commitments, on the other hand, are social concepts that define the willingness and capability of an actor A to fulfill a predicate ϕ for the benefit of actor B, provided B (in return) ful- fills predicate ψ for the benefit of actor A. In our conceptualization, goals are mapped to collections of commitments rather than functions, qualities, or actor as- signments. We motivate the importance of the concept of commitment for RE through examples and discussion. We also contrast our proposal with state-of-the- art requirements modeling and analysis frameworks, such as KAOS, MAP, i* and Tropos. 1 Introduction Colette Rolland is an eminent researcher, mentor and leader in the Information Systems community thanks to a distinguished career that spans more than three decades. Her plethora of contributions include novel concepts, methods and tools for building information systems, as well as dozens of young researchers who will carry the torch of her ideas for years to come. One of those ideas that has had tre- mendous impact on the field is the notion that system requirements are stakeholder