Herding Cats: A Case Study of Release Management in an Open Collaboration Ecosystem

Abstract

Part 1: Full PapersInternational audienceRelease management in large-scale software development projects requires significant communication and coordination. It is particularly challenging in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) ecosystems, in which hundreds of loosely connected developers and their projects need to be coordinated to release software to a schedule. To better understand this process and its challenges, we analyzed over two and half years of communication in the GNOME ecosystem and studied developers’ interactions. We cataloged communication channels, categorized high level communication and coordination activities in one of them, and triangulated our results by interviewing developers. We found that a release schedule, influence instead of direct control, and diversity are factors that impact positively the release process in the GNOME ecosystem. Our results can help organizations build better large-scale teams and show that research focused on individual projects might miss important parts of the picture

Micro-politics, Semiotic Power and Infrastructural Inversion: Theoretical Lenses for Geopolitical HCI

“…Within literature examining design and implementation of information systems the focus on political issues concentrated more on the organizational change, managerial practices, and political tactics to resist change [17,18]. In software engineering some research has been carried out to investigate power and politics in different areas such as requirements engineering [11,19], and software eco-systems [20,21]. In a study by Bano, Zowghi, & Ramini, [16] the political aspects of the relationship between user involvement and system success has been studied .…”

Free and open source software development: the end of the teenage years

“…The 10th Annual Future of Open Source Survey [2] showed that 65% of the surveyed companies leverage FOSS to speed up application development, and 55% leverage FOSS for production infrastructure. On the other hand, the movement has introduced new challenges [3][4][5][6][7], especially in relation to openness and the innovative nature of this development model.…”