The "quality gap" is a fundamental concept in quality management that represents the difference between the customer's expectations and perceptions of a product and the producer's own view or specification of that product's quality. The producer's view is often based on conformance to internal requirements and technical standards. In contrast, the customer's view is based on fitness for use, usability, and satisfaction of their specific needs. A product can meet all technical specifications (producer's view) yet fail to satisfy the customer (customer's view), resulting in a significant quality gap. Closing this gap is the primary goal of a customer-focused quality assurance program.

B. The gap between the software developer's view and the tester's view: This describes an internal process gap related to interpreting requirements or defect severity, not the overall product quality gap from a customer perspective.

C. The gap between the software developer's view and the quality assurance group's view: This is an internal gap concerning process adherence and quality standards within the development lifecycle, not the external customer-producer gap.

D. The gap between the quality assurance group's view and the quality control group's view: This reflects a potential misalignment between process-oriented (QA) and product-oriented (QC) functions within the organization, which is an internal matter.

E. The gap between the quality control group's view and internal audit's view: This represents a difference in perspective between product testing (QC) and process/compliance verification (audit), an internal organizational issue.

1. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41–50. This foundational paper introduces the "Gaps Model of Service Quality." The ultimate gap (Gap 5) is the "customer gap," defined as the discrepancy between customer expectations and their perceptions of the service delivered. This is a direct parallel to the gap between the customer's view and the producer's view. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298504900403)

2. Garvin, D. A. (1984). What Does "Product Quality" Really Mean?. Sloan Management Review, 26(1), 25-43. Garvin discusses multiple dimensions of quality, including the "user-based approach" where quality "lies in the eyes of the beholder" (the customer's view) and the "manufacturing-based approach" where quality is conformance to specifications (the producer's view). The disparity between these views constitutes the quality gap.

3. University of Toronto, Department of Computer Science. (n.d.). CSC301: Introduction to Software Engineering, Lecture on Software Quality. Courseware. The lecture materials distinguish between quality from the user's perspective (e.g., solves their problem, is easy to use) and quality from the developer's perspective (e.g., maintainability, testability, conformance to design). The difference between these perspectives is central to understanding software quality.