The Role of Modularity in Free/Open Source Software Development

Narduzzo, Alessandro; Rossi, Alessandro

doi:10.4018/978-1-59140-369-2.ch004

Cited by 25 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…With IS and other approaches to institutional analysis, it becomes possible to articulate the relationships between governance, organizational, and technical variables. For example, previous studies on OSS often report code modularity as a key technical design attribute [30,28]. Hissam et al [23] write: 'A well-modularized system ... allows contributors to carve off chunks on which they can work.'…”

Section: Institutional Theory and Commons Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Open Source Software Sustainability: Combining Institutional Analysis and Socio-Technical Networks

Yin¹,

Chakraborty²,

Schweik³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Open Source Software (OSS) forms much of the fabric of our digital society, especially successful and sustainable ones. But many OSS projects do not become sustainable, resulting in abandonment and even risks for the world's digital infrastructure. Prior work has looked at the reasons for this mainly from two very different perspectives. In software engineering, the focus has been on understanding success and sustainability from the socio-technical perspective: the OSS programmers' day-to-day activities and the artifacts they create. In institutional analysis, on the other hand, emphasis has been on institutional designs (e.g., policies, rules, and norms) that structure governance. Even though each is necessary for a comprehensive understanding of OSS projects, the connection and interaction between the two approaches have been barely explored.In this paper, we make the first effort toward understanding OSS project sustainability using a dual-view analysis, by combining institutional analysis with

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Section: Institutional Theory and Commons Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Open Source Software Sustainability: Combining Institutional Analysis and Socio-Technical Networks

Yin¹,

Chakraborty²,

Schweik³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…From the theoretical standpoint, modularity of FLOSS projects has been extensively analyzed [7,14,18], and advocated as a necessary condition for appropriately leveraging the distributed approach of FLOSS developers. Less frequently it has been evaluated empirically, and mostly on fine-granular elements: for example, the modularization (in terms of functions) in FLOSS procedural languages has been compared to the modularization (in terms of methods) in FLOSS object-oriented languages [6]; also, the common coupling among modules of the Linux kernel has been extensively analyzed [25].…”

Section: Definitionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domain Drivers in the Modularization of FLOSS Systems

Capiluppi

2009

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

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Abstract. The classification of software systems into types has been achieved in the past by observing both their specifications and behavioral patterns: the SPE classification, for instance, and its further supplements and refinements, has identified the S-type (i.e., fully specified), the P-type (i.e., specified but dependent on the context) and the E-type (i.e., addressing evolving problems) among the software systems.In order to detect types, and establish similarities, among Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) systems, this paper considers three modular characteristics (functions, files and folders) and their evolution: how they are evolving with size, if they are constant across systems, and whether recurring evolutionary patterns are observed. Using these various-grained characteristics, a set of models for the evolution of modularization are extracted from evolving systems, and then used to extract similarities and types from a wide sample of FLOSS projects.This paper provides three contributions: first, it shows that several models are needed to encompass the variety of modularization patterns; second, it provides three types of models (uni-variate, bi-variate and tri-variate) for the evolution of modularization, with significant goodness-of-fit's. Finally, it shows that two of these patterns alone can interpolate the modular characteristics of the vast majority of a random choice of FLOSS projects.

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“…We call them community‐led projects. The high–high case usually comes up when a software project has a stable design and when it is structurally possible to break it in many independent modules that are suitable for large‐scale team development (Narduzzo & Rossi, 2005). In many cases, the design originates from an established standard.…”

Section: A Model For Open Source Softwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Information policies and open source software in developing countries

Câmara¹,

Fonseca²

2006

J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci.

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Many authors propose that open source software (OSS)is a good strategy to bring information and communication technologies to developing countries. Nevertheless, the use of OSS needs to be more than just adopting Linux as the standard for operating systems. Adoption of OSS is not only a choice of software, but also a means of acquiring knowledge. Developing countries have to use OSS as a way to gain knowledge about the technology itself and as a way of creating technology products that fit their specific needs. In this article, the authors introduce a model of OSS based on its essential characteristics to understand how developing countries may use OSS to achieve their development goals. The authors argue that there are two defining properties of any open source software. The first property is the potential for shared conceptualization and the second is the potential for modularity. By assessing how each OSS project satisfies these two conditions, a taxonomy is built for open source projects. This taxonomy will help the development of more sensible policies to promote the use of open source in developing countries.

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The Role of Modularity in Free/Open Source Software Development

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

Open Source Software Sustainability: Combining Institutional Analysis and Socio-Technical Networks

Open Source Software Sustainability: Combining Institutional Analysis and Socio-Technical Networks

Domain Drivers in the Modularization of FLOSS Systems

Information policies and open source software in developing countries

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