Context: Open source software (OSS) and software ecosystems (SECOs) are two consolidated research areas in software engineering. OSS influences the way organizations develop, acquire, use and commercialize software. SECOs have emerged as a paradigm to understand dynamics and heterogeneity in collaborative software development. For this reason, SECOs appear as a valid instrument to analyze OSS systems. However, there are few studies that blend both topics together.Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the current state of the art in OSS ecosystems (OSSECOs) research, specifically: (a) what the most relevant definitions related to OSSECOs are; (b) what the particularities of this type of SECO are; and (c) how the knowledge about OSSECO is represented.Method: We conducted a systematic mapping following recommended practices. We applied automatic and manual searches on different sources and used a rigorous method to elicit the keywords from the research questions and selection criteria to retrieve the final papers. As a result, 82 papers were selected and evaluated. Threats to validity were identified and mitigated whenever possible.Results: The analysis allowed us to answer the research questions. Most notably, we did the following: (a) identified 64 terms related to the OSSECO and arranged them into a taxonomy; (b) built a genealogical tree to understand the genesis of the OSSECO term from related definitions; (c) analyzed the available definitions of SECO in the context of OSS; and (d) classified the existing modelling and analysis techniques of OSSECOs.Conclusion: As a summary of the systematic mapping, we conclude that existing research on several topics related to OSSECOs is still scarce (e.g., modelling and analysis techniques, quality models, standard definitions, etc.). This situation calls for further investigation efforts on how organizations and OSS communities actually understand OSSECOs.
Abstract. Non-functional requirements (NFRs) are determinant for the success of software projects. However, they are characterized as hard to define, and in agile software development (ASD), are often given less priority and usually not documented. In this paper, we present the findings of the documentation practices and challenges of NFRs in companies utilizing ASD and propose guidelines for enhancing NFRs documentation in ASD. We interviewed practitioners from four companies and identified that epics, features, user stories, acceptance criteria, Definition of Done (DoD), product and sprint backlogs are used for documenting NFRs. Wikis, word documents, mockups and spreadsheets are also used for documenting NFRs. In smaller companies, NFRs are communicated through white board and flip chart discussions and developers' tacit knowledge is prioritized over documentation. However, loss of traceability of NFRs, the difficulty in comprehending NFRs by new developers joining the team and limitations of documentation practices for NFRs are challenges in ASD. In this regard, we propose guidelines for documenting NFRs in ASD. The proposed guidelines consider the diversity of the NFRs to document and suggest different representation artefacts depending on the NFRs scope and level of detail. The representation artefacts suggested are among those currently used in ASD in order not to introduce new specific ones that might hamper actual adoption by practitioners.
Context: Model-Driven Development (MDD) and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two challenging research areas in software engineering. MDD is about improving software development whilst SOA is a service-based conceptual development style, therefore investigating the available proposals in the literature to use MDD when developing SOA may be insightful. However, no studies have been found with this purpose.Objective: This work aims at assessing the state of the art in MDD for SOA systems. It mainly focuses on: what are the characteristics of MDD approaches that support SOA; what types of SOA are supported; how do they handle non-functional requirements.Method: We conducted a mapping study following a rigorous protocol. We identified the representative set of venues that should be included in the study. We applied a search string over the set of selected venues. As result, 129 papers were selected and analysed (both frequency analysis and correlation analysis) with respect to the defined classification criteria derived from the research questions. Threats to validity were identified and mitigated whenever possible.Results: The analysis allows us to answer the research questions. We highlight: 1) predominance of papers from Europe and written by researchers only; 2) predominance of top-down transformation in software development activities; 3) inexistence of consolidated methods; 4) significant percentage of works without tool support; 5) SOA systems and service compositions more targeted than single services and SOA enterprise systems; 6) limited use of metamodels; 7) very limited use of NFRs; 8) limited application in real cases.Conclusion: This mapping study does not just provide the state of the art in the topic, but also identifies several issues that deserve investigation in the future, for instance the need of methods for activities other than software development (e.g., migration) or the need of conducting more real case studies.
Open Source Software (OSS) has become a strategic asset for a number of reasons, such as short time-to-market software delivery, reduced development and maintenance costs, and its customization capabilities. Therefore, organizations are increasingly becoming OSS adopters, either as a result of a strategic decision or because it is almost unavoidable nowadays, given the fact that most commercial software also relies at some extent in OSS infrastructure. The way in which organizations adopt OSS affects and shapes their businesses. Therefore, knowing the impact of different OSS adoption strategies in the context of an organization may help improving the processes undertaken inside this organization and ultimately pave the road to strategic moves. In this paper, we propose to model OSS adoption strategies using a goal-oriented notation, in which different actors state their objectives and dependencies on each other. These models describe the consequences of adopting one such strategy or another: which are the strategic and operational goals that are supported, which are the resources that emerge, etc. The models rely on an OSS ontology, built upon a systematic literature review, which comprises the activities and resources that characterise these strategies. Different OSS adoption strategy models arrange these ontology elements in diverse ways. In order to assess which is the OSS adoption strategy that better fits the organization needs, the notion of model coverage is introduced, which allows to measure the degree of concordance among every strategy with the model of the organization by comparing the respective models. The approach is illustrated with an example of application in a big telecommunications company.
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