The structure of complex software systems can be extracted as a complex software network, and the quality of software systems largely depends on the topological structure of the software network. A small portion of important nodes plays a critical role in ensuring the stability and quality of the software system. Identifying these important nodes in software network has become an important and challenging task of software engineering. In this paper, firstly we construct a model of directed

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... ted software network. Then, by analyzing the bug propagation process on weighted software network, the values of some metrics related to ripple effects are calculated. Finally, important nodes whose ripple effects are larger than average ripple effect are identified by our proposed approach. Experimental results on real software data show the utility of the approach.