A Reliability Automatic Assessment Framework for Open Source Software

In recent years, more and more companies have moved from closed source software development to open source software (OSS) development. The reliability assessment of OSS has become an important issue. However, due to the lack of a standardized development process and uncertain number of participating developers, it is hard to measure the reliability of OSS compared to closed source software. This paper proposes a framework for reliability automatic assessment of OSS based on JIRA. It contains the failure data acquisition module, the reliability modeling module, and the reliability attribute analysis module. The proposed framework is applied on popular OSS Kafka to assess its reliability. The experimental results are compared with previous work related to OSS reliability assessment and show that the proposed framework is good for the reliability assessment of OSS.

This paper outlines a critical, textual approach for the analysis of the relationship between different actors in information technology (IT) production, and further concretizes the approach in the analysis of the role of users in the open source software (OSS) development literature. Central concepts of the approach are outlined. The role of users is conceptualized as reader involvement aiming to contribute to the configuration of the reader (to how users and the parameters for their work practices are defined in OSS texts). Afterwards, OSS literature addressing reader involvement is critically reviewed. In OSS context, the OSS writers as readers configure the reader and other readers are assumed to be capable of and interested in commenting the texts. A lack of OSS research on non-technical reader involvement is identified. Furthermore, not only are the OSS readers configured, but so are OSS writers. In OSS context while writers may be empowered, this clearly does not apply to the non-technical OSS readers. Implication for research and practice are discussed.

Researchers have proposed and implemented a plethora of bug prediction approaches in terms of different mathematical models for measuring the reliability growth of the software and to predict the latent bugs lying dormant in the software. During the last four decades, software reliability growth models (SRGM) have been successfully used to measure the reliability growth of closed source software. The SRGM developed were based on either calendar time or on testing effort. In late 90s, due to the advancement in communication and internet technologies, the development of open source software gets an edge and is proven to be very successful in different fields. Recently, researchers have measured the latent bugs in the open source software using an SRGM which has been developed for closed source software and concluded that the existing SRGM can well predict the latent bugs, but, still, it needs more investigation. In open source software, the source codes are frequently changes (the complexity of code changes) to meet the new feature introduction, feature enhancement and bug repair. In this paper, we have developed two complexity of code changes/entropy based bug prediction models namely (i) time vs entropy and (ii) entropy vs bugs. We have compared the proposed models with the existing time vs bugs SRGM. The empirical work has been carried out using three subsystems of Mozilla project. The statistical significance of different approaches has been tested using a non-parametric Kolmogorov–Smirnov (K–S) test. The bug prediction approaches have been compared on the basis of various performance measures namely R-Square (R2), Adjusted R-Square (adj. R2), Bias, variation and root mean square prediction errors. We found that the potential complexity of code changes based bug prediction approach i.e. time vs entropy is better over the time vs bugs and entropy vs bugs on the basis of different comparison criteria and statistical test.

One opportunity for organizations to participate in open source software (OSS) development is through <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">organizations OSS</i> (orgsOSS), a term we use to describe a group of organizations that commit resources to collectively develop OSS. This archetype of OSS development is distinct from other types that include organizations, yet is understudied. As organizations increasingly contribute to and rely on OSS as part of their strategy, understanding how they can collaborate to build software holds importance for the future of software development. This study collects a unique dataset of development tasks from a large orgsOSS project spanning over two years and seven releases. Building on existing OSS research, we explore norms with respect to collaboration, i.e., how developers assign, discuss, and complete tasks, in an orgsOSS project. Interestingly, our analysis reveals that developers in orgsOSS do not always adhere to ideals of widespread sharing and participation espoused by traditional OSS, however some developer and task characteristics helped foster these ideals. Based on these and other findings, we develop a set of propositions and associated collaboration mechanisms that are important to future orgsOSS and other similarly structured software development projects.

Open source software is becoming increasingly prominent, and the economic structure of open-source development is changing. In recent years, firms motivated by revenues from software services markets have become the primary contributors to open-source development. In this paper we study the role of services in open source software development and explore the choice between open source and proprietary software. Specifically, our economic model jointly analyzes the investment and pricing decisions of the originators of software and of subsequent open-source contributors. We find that if a contributor is efficient in software development, the originator should adopt an open-source strategy, allowing the contributor to offer higher total quality and capture the higher end of the market while the originator focuses on providing software services to lower end consumers. Conversely, if the contributor is not efficient in development, the originator should adopt a proprietary software development strategy, gaining revenue from software sales and squeezing the contributor out of the services market. In certain cases an increase in originator development efficiency can result in increased contributor profits. Finally, we find that, somewhat counterintuitively, an increase in contributor development efficiency can reduce overall social welfare.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the reliability growth of Open Source Software (OSS) versus software developed in-house (i.e. Closed Source Software, CSS) using Software Reliability Growth Model. This study uses 22 datasets containing failure data of CSS and 18 datasets containing defect data of OSS projects. The failure data are modelled by eight SRGM (Musa Okumoto, Inflection S-Shaped, Goel Okumoto, Delayed S-Shaped, Logistic, Gompertz, Yamada Exponential, and Generalized Goel Model). These models are chosen due to their widespread use. The results can be summarized as follows All selected SRGM fit to defect data of the OSS projects in the same manner as that of CSS. OSS reliability grows similarly to that of CSS. Musa Okumoto and Inflection S-Shaped perform well for CSS, while for OSS Inflection S-Shaped and Gompertz are good performers. SRGM can be used for reliability characterization of OSS projects.

Usability is an important quality characteristic of software products and information systems. Different approaches for introducing usability activities into open source software (OSS) development have not yet been fully evaluated. This paper experiments with the introduction of usability activities into OSS development through a participative approach. An empirical case study was carried out in a game development OSS project. The results of this study suggest that it is beneficial to introduce usability activities into OSS development through the participative approach. In the participative approach the usability experts become recognized part of the development community through adapting their ways of work into the culture of the OSS project and submitting code patches. This participative approach had a clear impact in the case project as seen in changes in the user interface and in improved usability. The challenge of adapting usability and OSS development philosophies and practices should, however, be researched further.

Interest of scientific research on Open Source software and its development process is frequent. The number of articles available and the number of tracks or workshops on this topic in most relevant IS Conferences is high. The usability of Open Source Software has been scarcely considered until few years ago, probably due to the particular role that the user has in such a development environment. In Open Source software development, users and developers are not so different. Anyhow, the diffusion of the Open Source software outside the development community contributes to sharpen the distinction among these two groups that are no longer equivalent. This circumstance has contributed to increase the interest on usability of Open Source software. Nevertheless, studies on end-users in Open Source contexts are still young. This paper introduces a pilot study on end user's perception of Open Source software. The aim of this pilot study is to identify how the end user perceives the Open Source software (in terms of Usability, Functionality, Reliability, Efficiency and Quality in Use).

The development of information technology in Indonesia has increasingly driven the use of Open Source Software (OSS), which enables open collaboration among developers worldwide. However, the implementation of copyright protection for OSS in Indonesia faces challenges, as the basic principle of copyright, which grants exclusive rights to creators, contradicts the spirit of sharing that lies at the core of OSS. This article aims to analyze the challenges faced in implementing copyright for OSS in Indonesia and explore how the adaptation of copyright regulations can support OSS development. This research employs a descriptive qualitative approach with document analysis and interviews as data collection methods. Data sources are derived from relevant legal literature on copyright, OSS licenses, and interviews with software developers and legal experts in Indonesia. The findings indicate that the mismatch between the exclusive nature of copyright principles and the collaborative spirit of OSS is the main challenge in legal regulation. Moreover, limited understanding of OSS licenses among software developers in Indonesia exacerbates the potential for copyright violations. Therefore, this study recommends the need for updates to the Copyright Law to better support the concept of open licensing and to provide better education for developers regarding the legal implications of using OSS. Strengthening the monitoring system is also necessary to ensure that OSS developers in Indonesia can continue to innovate safely while respecting copyright.

Shared understandings are important for software development as they guide effective individual contributions and coordination of the software development process. However, it is not clear if such understandings can be developed in highly distributed groups that do not regularly meet face-to-face. In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary analysis of shared mental models within a Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development team. We analyzed mental models using cognitive mapping and process analysis and compared the models of four developers from the Apache Lucene Java project. Our analysis suggests that there is a high level of sharing among core developers but the sharing is not complete, with some differences related to tenure and role in the project. Finally, we suggest directions for further research on shared mental models in FLOSS teams.

In stark contrast with the fully participative “bazaar” imagery of open source software (OSS) development, some recent empirical research has pointed out that much of the OSS development is carried out by a small percentage of developers. This raises serious concerns that concentration of development effort on a few will limit knowledge sharing and underutilize the available resources. Using the notion of strategic interaction, this paper argues that individual developers often interact strategically with other highly resourceful developers by forming a smaller but better organized structure to intensify the types of epistemic interactions that matter most to the OSS development. A general framework of strategic interaction including participation inequality, conversational interactivity, and cross-thread connectivity is proposed to examine its impact on knowledge sharing, and validated using 128 discussion threads from the K Desktop Environment (KDE) developer mailing list. The findings indicate that strategic interaction has expanded knowledge sharing but with the caveat that extreme concentration of development could have an opposite effect. For researchers, this study dovetails the incentive logic by proposing and validating the strategic aspects of OSS participation to better understand the collective dynamics underpinning OSS development. Practitioners can use this approach to evaluate and better support existing knowledge-sharing initiatives.

In the software industry, two software engineering development best practices coexist: open-source and closed-source software. The former has a shared code that anyone can contribute, whereas the latter has a proprietary code that only the owner can access. Software reliability is crucial in the industry when a new product or update is released. Applying meta-heuristic optimization algorithms for closed-source software reliability prediction has produced significant and accurate results. Now, open-source software dominates the landscape of cloud-based systems. Therefore, providing results on open- source software reliability - as a quality indicator - would greatly help solve the open-source software reliability growth- modelling problem. The reliability is predicted by estimating the parameters of the software reliability models. As software reliability models are inherently nonlinear, traditional approaches make estimating the appropriate parameters difficult and ineffective. Consequently, software reliability models necessitate a high- quality parameter estimation technique. These objectives dictate the exploration of potential applications of meta- heuristic swarm intelligence optimization algorithms for optimizing the parameter estimation of nonhomogeneous Poisson process-based open-source software reliability modelling. The optimization algorithms are firefly, social spider, artificial bee colony, grey wolf, particle swarm, moth flame, and whale. The applicability and performance evaluation of the optimization modelling approach is demonstrated through two real open-source software reliability datasets. The results are promising

Open-source software (OSS) is a computer software that is available in source code form for which the source code and certain other rights, normally reserved for copyright holders, are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change and improve the software. OSS is popular with technically sophisticated users, who are often also the software developers, and has not yet made a significant impact on the desktop of most users. OSS has much potential for libraries and information centres, and there are a number of projects, including Greenstone, Dspace, Ganesha etc., that demonstrates its viability in this context. OSS is becoming an increasingly popular software development method. This paper describes what are an OSS and its features, software licensing, advantages and disadvantages. The paper mainly highlights the features, functions and use of some popular open source software like Greenstone, New Gen Lib, and DSpace and E-Granthalaya.

The contingent role of interproject connectedness in cultivating open source software projects

Developers constantly make various assumptions regarding requirements, environment, design decisions, etc. during software development. However, these assumptions are usually implicit and undocumented and there is a lack of understanding regarding what assumptions have been made and discussed in software development. Open Source Software (OSS) is recently becoming an important part of software industry. To this end, we conducted an exploratory study on assumptions in OSS development. We extracted and analyzed 9006 posts from the developer mailing list of Hibernate (a popular OSS project), in order to explore (1) assumption expression and (2) classification, (3) the trend of assumptions over time, and (4) related software artifacts of assumptions in OSS development. We identified 832 assumptions from the Hibernate developer mailing list. The findings are: (1) most of the assumptions are expressed as "Feature Request" and "Solution Proposal"; (2) more than half of the identified assumptions are design assumptions and are made for software design; (3) assumptions exist in the whole OSS development lifecycle; and (4) the major category of related artifacts of assumptions is "Design Document".