Despite growing interest of Open Innovation (OI) in Software Engineering (SE), little is known about what triggers software organizations to adopt it and how this affects SE practices. OI can be realized in numerous of ways, including Open Source Software (OSS) involvement. Outcomes from OI are not restricted to product innovation but also include process innovation, e.g. improved SE practices and methods. This study explores the involvement of a software organization (Sony Mobile) in OSS communities from an OI perspective and what SE practices (requirements engineering and testing) have been adapted in relation to OI. It also highlights the innovative outcomes resulting from OI. An exploratory embedded case study investigates how Sony Mobile use and contribute to Jenkins and Gerrit; the two central OSS tools in their continuous integration tool chain. Quantitative analysis was performed on change log data from source code repositories in order to identify the top contributors and triangulated with the results from five semi-structured interviews to explore the nature of the commits. The findings of the case study include five major themes: i) The process of opening up towards the tool communities correlates in time with a general adoption of OSS in the organization. ii) Assets not seen as competitive advantage nor a source of revenue are made open to OSS communities, and gradually, the organization turns more open. iii) The requirements engineering process towards the community is informal and based on engagement. iv) The need for systematic and automated testing is still in its infancy, but the needs are identified. v) The innovation outcomes included free features and maintenance, and were believed to increase speed and quality in development. Adopting OI was a result of a paradigm shift of moving from Windows to Linux. This shift enabled Sony Mobile to utilize the Jenkins and Gerrit communities to make their internal development process better for its software developers and testers.
Abstract. [Context and motivation]Ecosystems developed as Open Source Software (OSS) are considered to be highly innovative and reactive to new market trends due to their openness and wide-ranging contributor base. Participation in OSS often implies opening up of the software development process and exposure towards new stakeholders. [Question/Problem] Firms considering to engage in such an environment should carefully consider potential opportunities and challenges upfront. The openness may lead to higher innovation potential but also to frictional losses for engaged firms. Further, as an ecosystem progresses, power structures and influence on feature selection may fluctuate accordingly. [Principal ideas/results] We analyze the Apache Hadoop ecosystem in a quantitative longitudinal case study to investigate changing stakeholder influence and collaboration patterns. Further, we investigate how its innovation and time-to-market evolve at the same time.[Contribution] Findings show collaborations between and influence shifting among rivaling and non-competing firms. Network analysis proves valuable on how an awareness of past, present and emerging stakeholders, in regards to power structure and collaborations may be created. Furthermore, the ecosystem's innovation and time-to-market show strong variations among the release history. Indications were also found that these characteristics are influenced by the way how stakeholders collaborate with each other.
Motivation. Digital commons is an emerging phenomenon and of increasing importance, as we enter a digital society. Open data is one example that makes up a pivotal input and foundation for many of today's digital services and applications. Ensuring sustainable provisioning and maintenance of the data, therefore, becomes even more important. Aim. We aim to investigate how such provisioning and maintenance can be collaboratively performed in the community surrounding a common. Specifically, we look at Open Data Ecosystems (ODEs), a type of community of actors, openly sharing and evolving data on a technological platform. Method. We use Elinor Ostrom's design principles for Common Pool Resources as a lens to systematically analyze the governance of earlier reported cases of ODEs using a theory-oriented software engineering framework. Results. We find that, while natural commons must regulate consumption, digital commons such as open data maintained by an ODE must stimulate both use and data provisioning. Governance needs to enable such stimulus while also ensuring that the collective action can still be coordinated and managed within the frame of available maintenance resources of a community. Subtractability is, in this sense, a concern regarding the resources required to maintain the quality and value of the data, rather than the availability of data. Further, we derive empirically-based recommended practices for ODEs based on the design principles by Ostrom for how to design a governance structure in a way that enables a sustainable and collaborative provisioning and maintenance of the data. Conclusion. ODEs are expected to play a role in data provisioning which democratize the digital society and enables innovation from smaller commercial actors. Our empirically based guidelines intend to support this development.CCS Concepts: • Software and its engineering → Open source model.
For a firm in an open source software (OSS) ecosystem, the requirements engineering (RE) process is rather multifaceted. Apart from its typical RE process, there is a competing process, external to the firm and inherent to the firm's ecosystem. When trying to impose an agenda in competition with other firms, and aiming to align internal product planning with the ecosystem's RE process, firms need to consider who and how influential the other stakeholders are, and what their agendas are. The aim of the presented research is to help firms identify and analyze stakeholders in OSS ecosystems, in terms of their influence and interactions, to create awareness of their agendas, their collaborators, and how they invest their resources. To arrive at a solution artifact, we applied a design science research approach where we base artifact design on the literature and earlier work. A stakeholder influence analysis (SIA) method is proposed and demonstrated in terms of applicability and utility through a case study on the Apache Hadoop OSS ecosystem. SIA uses social network constructs to measure the stakeholders' influence and interactions and considers the special characteristics of OSS RE to help firms structure their stakeholder analysis processes in relation to an OSS ecosystem. SIA adds a strategic aspect to the stakeholder analysis process by addressing the concepts of influence and interactions, which are important to consider while acting in collaborative and meritocratic RE cultures of OSS ecosystems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.