Evolution and Growth in Large Libre Software Projects

Libre (free/open source) software provides an ample range of publicly available data sources about its development, which can be retrieved and analyzed. Consequently, it offers a good opportunity to build predictive estimation and evolution models. The main challenge to understand libre software development is that its development nature is radically different from 'classical' in-house software development, common in industry in the last decades. Developers and other human resources are generally a mixture of a few hired developers and many volunteers whose contribution (in number of hours per week and in total time devoted to the project) is not foreseeable in advance. This paper is a first step in finding predictive models in the libre software world. We have studied three data repositories (versioning system, mailing lists and bug tracking system) of GNOME, a large libre software project with several thousand contributors and several millions of lines of code, measuring activity and participation in it during the last years. Results and correlations for these sources allow us to adventure some first estimations of how participation and activity will evolve in the future.

Libre software, also known as Open Source Software or Free Software, has already changed the way we know education. This influence goes from content-with examples such as the Wikipedia-, openness -for instance, the OCW- or tools -like learning management systems or desktop applications. In this paper, we introduce some new trends that are inspired in the libre software movement and that may change education in the near future. Among others, experiences such as the OpenSE project -where students can be ‘free learners’ outside of any type of formal educational context- or the p2p University -an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses- will be presented and discussed.

Thanks to the open nature of libre (free, open source) software projects, researchers have gained access to a rich set of data related to various aspects of software development. Although it is usually publicly available on the Internet, obtaining and analyzing the data in a convenient way is not an easy task, and many considerations have to be taken into account. In this chapter we introduce the most relevant data sources that can be found in libre software projects and that are commonly studied by scholars: source code releases, source code management systems, mailing lists and issue (bug) tracking systems. The chapter also provides some advice on the problems that can be found when retrieving and preparing the data sources for a later analysis, as well as information about the tools and datasets that support these tasks.

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.

IWPSE-Evol'09 merges the International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution (IWPSE) and the annual ERCIM Workshop on Software Evolution (Evol), and is the premier event dedicated to software evolution in 2009. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of IWPSE, the 5th anniversary of the ERCIM evolution workshop, and the 20th anniversary of ERCIM itself, we have chosen to join forces by organising a common event at ESEC/FSE 2009, under the special theme "The Future of Software Evolution". We explicitly solicited submissions that take a historical perspective on a particular facet of software evolution research, practice or education, argue for the current challenges, and speculate on what the future might bring. We received 36 submissions, 20 of which were full papers. The short papers comprised 14 position papers and 2 tool papers. We asked authors to classify their submissions according to 15 topics, in order to facilitate matching with the expertise of the program committee members. Every paper could be classified in more than one topic. To give an idea of current research in software evolution, we list the six most popular topics: Processes, paradigms and methodologies for software evolution (14 papers)Measuring, analysing and visualising evolution (11 papers)Empirical studies and experience reports (10 papers)Consistency management and impact analysis (7 papers)History and future of software evolution (the workshop's theme); applying software evolution (each topic with 6 papers) After peer review and discussion of the submitted papers by an international program committee of experts in the field, only 10 full papers and 8 short papers were accepted. As can be seen from the table of contents of these proceedings, the accepted papers cover a very wide range of issues, from specific techniques to cope with software evolution to infrastructure that facilitates research in this field, and approaches, from formal to empirical. We hope that these proceedings will serve as a valuable reference for future software evolution researchers and for developers facing the problems of ever-changing software systems. Given the historical perspective of this year's edition of the joint workshop, the program chairs invited Takuya Katayama (Professor at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), the founding father of the IWPSE workshop series, and Tom Mens (Professor at the University of Mons, Belgium), the chair and founding father of the ERCIM Working Group on Software Evolution, to give anniversary talks on IWPSE and EVOL, respectively. They accepted the challenge to look back on the history of IWPSE and the ERCIM Working Group, and to highlight future opportunities for software evolution research. We are also delighted that Hausi Müller (Professor at the University of Victoria, Canada) accepted our invitation to give a keynote talk on a particular field of software evolution that has seen quite some activity in recent years: run-time evolution to enable autonomic systems that self-adapt to changing environments.

Samsung R&D Institute Brazil (SRBR) is one of Samsung's research centers around the world. SRBR work is focused on research on software development areas. SRBR software development teams have worked in collaboration with Samsung headquarters (HQ), located at South Korea, and Brazilian outsourcing companies (SIDI Institute and other Brazilian partners). Considering the massive volume of software developed by SRBR and partners teams, there naturally has been an enormous use and contribution of open source software. The usage of open source software (OSS) by Samsung and its research centers follows a process to ensure that all use is compliant with OSS licenses. This experience report describes OSKB (Open Source Knowledge Base) tool, a distributed collaboration Web application fully integrated with a tracking issue system, currently used by SRBR teams involved with software development for avoiding duplicated work and improving knowledge sharing among SRBR internal and partners teams. The main reasons behind OSKB development were automating the first step of OSS licenses verification activity reducing duplicated work, serving as a knowledge base of OSS analysis, reducing the time spent in back office operations related with OSS usage and mitigating OSS usage compliance risks.

Open has defined my professional career in every way imaginable: for almost ten years now it has been the motivating force in my career, the mode in which I work, and the subject that I research. As a result, today I live and breathe open—but it has not always been this way. What follows is the story of how open proved itself to me. It is a story that demonstrates how participating in open projects and processes can lead to unexpected opportunities. In my case, these opportunities have taken me on a journey from an itinerant software developer, to a workshop instructor in over a dozen countries, to a PhD at Stanford University, and finally to an academic career. These opportunities have lead to my contributing thousands of lines of code, over a dozen research articles, two edited books, countless workshops for journal editors, and the teaching of undergraduate and graduate students. More importantly, they have allowed me to contribute back to the region of the world from which I emigrated as a child by helping to amplify the voices of Latin American scholars worldwide. This unexpected journey started in January 2006 when I took a job at the open access Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), where I was responsible, among other things, for upgrading the journal to the latest version of the Public Knowledge Project's (PKP) open source software Open Journal Systems (OJS). JMIR has been a pioneer in open access, and it was doing so using open source software as its foundation. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this convergence of open source with open access would become the defining trait of my career. As a software developer by training, I knew the benefits of open source software from a practical level. The existence of OJS made my job at JMIR easier (plus, it came at a convenient price!). But it was not until I was ready to leave that job (I wanted to move back to my native Argentina) that I realized how contributing to an open source project could also lead to new and unexpected opportunities. I had been contributing code back to PKP—this is what you do when you develop open source—and so when I emailed PKP's director (John Willinsky) asking for short contract to finalize a few contributions, he already knew who I was and readily agreed. What was surprising to me, was that he also asked me to lead a series of workshops on open access and OJS in Latin America. It is a testament to John Willinsky that he hired me to represent PKP without ever asking for a CV—my code contributions had spoken for themselves. This work set off a chain of events that is still unfolding to this date. My open source code contributions lead to regular work with PKP: writing software, running workshops, conducting surveys, and studying the results. The work kept me off the streets of Argentina, but more importantly, it allowed me to engage with Latin Americans and reconnect with a region I had emigrated from fifteen years prior. As I engaged, I learned about the plight of Latin American scholars, and of the incredible interest from the region in open access. I quickly realized that my technical expertise in OJS could serve the interests of these scholars, and supporting them has become a driving motivation in all my professional activities. I have always felt proud of my contributions OJS, and in how this open source software supports open access, but over time I felt the need to better understand the role of open access itself. This curiosity led me to a PhD program at Stanford University, where I was able to devote my attention to studying the Public Impact of Latin America's Approach to Open Access and other aspects of scholarly publishing. Along the way, I have ensured that all my research outputs are openly available. Contrary to researcher's concerns, this has not prevented me from getting a faculty position in a market where these are increasingly rare. My hope is to use this position to continue to further our understanding of open access and of Latin America's scholarly communication, with the belief that this will lead to positive outcomes for the region. Whatever contributions I make—through research, software, or in my life in general—were enabled by contributing to open source and open access. I owe this debt to openness, and I intend to pay it back for the rest of my career by being open about my work, and by contributing to projects and organizations that support openness. This is, after all, what you do in an open ecosystem. It is the secret sauce of openness, and I invite you to benefit from it as much as I have.

Open Source Software (OSS) projects rely on the efforts of thousands of software developers. The sustainability and diversity of these communities are two important factors for the longterm viability of OSS communities. This paper reviews the research on OSS sustainability and diversity. Drawing on the findings of measures on sustainability and diversity, we applied a number of the established metrics to the Android Open Source Project and found that over a third of all contributions originate from Google. Surprisingly, in 2015 we saw a decrease in the total number of contributors within the Android project. Findings from our analysis highlight the importance of sustainability and diversity for the development of OSS.

Background: The popularity of the open source software development in the last decade, has brought about an increased interest from the industry on how to use open source components, participate in the open source community, build business models around this type of software development, and learn more about open source development methodologies. Aim: The aim of this study is to review research carried out on usage of open source components and development methodologies by the industry, as well as companies’ participation in the open source community. Method: Systematic review through searches in library databases and manual identification of articles from the open source conference. Results: 19 articles were identified. Conclusions: The articles could be divided into four categories: open source as part of component based software engineering, business models with open source in commercial organization, company participation in open source development communities, and usage of open source processes within a company.

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.

Cyber security is a rapidly developing field and open-source software (OSS) is being led by a collaborative community and a transparent nature. This research intends to make a theoretical framework highlighting the symbiosis of community engagement models, governance models, and the security of open-source ecosystems. The significant purposes aim to investigate how community engagement affects open source software development, analyze the deployment of the governance systems in widely used open source projects, and create the theoretical model that brings the cybersecurity processes in those practices. The literature survey covers existing research on open-source software development, community engagement, governance models, and cybersecurity practices within the OSS ecosystem. Through literature review the basic concepts are investigated using conceptual analysis to determine which principles and mechanisms the Community Model Engagement and Governance models operate, influencing the security of Open Source Software. Open-source project policy recommendations are the foundation for the security of communities where members fully contribute to better governance. This includes developing a fundamental conceptual analysis to lay out the framework's principles and operation (mechanisms). This contributes to the overall development of the theoretical framework. This research expects to develop a standardized theoretical framework that tackles the community engagement-governance models-security software link from new and insightful perspectives. Practical policy recommendations to protect OSS projects will be presented to solve the cybersecurity problem easily and immediately. This study aims to add to the academic and practical discussions that focus on human and organizational components' critical roles in securing open-source software. The discussion of theoretical aspects gives this platform a unique angle that fits well into the technical approach while improving the understanding of a legally open cybersecurity community

The Move to the Middle: Convergence of the Open-Source and Proprietary Software Industries

Over the past decade, numerous computer-assisted retrosynthesis reaction prediction methods have been reported in the chemical literature, several of which are also shared as open-source code. Reports of integrating these modern open-source retrosynthetic prediction techniques into the chemical education classroom, however, is largely absent. This article describes our efforts to teach a computer-assisted retrosynthesis workshop series using open-source reaction prediction software and methods. In addition to three workshops on selected open-source reaction prediction methods, the series included workshops on Python programming and introductory cheminformatics using the RDKit cheminformatics toolkit. A pre and post survey was distributed to better understand participant familiarity and workshop outcomes. Participants indicated that they had minimal experience with cheminformatics, and open-source retrosynthesis software, however after the workshop series they indicated increased familiarity, interest, and desire to pursue additional training related to open-source retrosynthesis software and methods. We conclude this article with our experiences and ideas for future improvements. The workshop materials and code are available with an open source license, and educators are encouraged to adapt and improve the lessons (https://github.com/UA-Libraries-Research-Data-Services/retrosynthesis).

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).

Open source software (OSS) is computer software that has its underlying source code made available under a licence. This can allow developers and users to adapt and improve it (Raymond, 2001). Computer software can be broadly split into two development models: • Proprietary, or closed software, owned by a company or individual. Copies of the binary are made public; the source code is not usually made public. • Open-source software (OSS), where the source code is released with the binary. Users and developers can be licenced to use and modify the code, and to distribute any improvements they make. Both OSS and proprietary approaches allow companies to make a profit. Companies developing proprietary software make money by developing software and then selling licences to use the software. For example, Microsoft receives a payment for every copy of Windows sold with a personal computer. OSS companies make their money by providing services, such as advising clients on the GPL licence. The licencee can either charge a fee for this service or work free of charge. In practice, software companies often develop both types of software. OSS is developed by an ongoing, iterative process where people share the ideas expressed in the source code. The aim is that a large community of developers and users can contribute to the development of the code, check it for errors and bugs, and make the improved version available to others. Project management software is used to allow developers to keep track of the various versions. There are two main types of open-source licences (although there are many variants and subtypes developed by other companies): • Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Licence: This permits a licencee to “close” a version (by withholding the most recent modifications to the source code) and sell it as a proprietary product; • GNU General Public Licence (GNU, GPL, or GPL): Under this licence, licencees may not “close” versions. The licencee may modify, copy, and redistribute any derivative version, under the same GPL licence. The licencee can either charge a fee for this service or work free of charge. Free software first evolved during the 1970s but in the 1990s forked into two movements, namely free software and open source (Berry, 2004). Richard Stallman, an American software developer who believes that sharing source code and ideas is fundamental to freedom of speech, developed a free version of the widely used Unix operating system. The resulting GNU program was released under a specially created General Public Licence (GNU, GPL). This was designed to ensure that the source code would remain openly available to all. It was not intended to prevent commercial usage or distribution (Stallman, 2002). This approach was christened free software. In this context, free meant that anyone could modify the software. However, the term “free” was often misunderstood to mean no cost. Hence, during the 1990s, Eric Raymond and others proposed that open-source software was coined as a less contentious and more business-friendly term. This has become widely accepted within the software and business communities; however there are still arguments about the most appropriate term to use (Moody, 2002). The OSMs are usually organised into a network of individuals who work collaboratively on the Internet, developing major software projects that sometimes rival commercial software but are always committed to the production of quality alternatives to those produced by commercial companies (Raymond, 2001; Williams, 2002). Groups and individuals develop software to meet their own and others’ needs in a highly decentralised way, likened to a Bazaar (Raymond, 2001). These groups often make substantive value claims to support their projects and foster an ethic of community, collaboration, deliberation, and intellectual freedom. In addition, it is argued by Lessig (1999) that the FLOSS community can offer an inspiration in their commitment to transparency in their products and their ability to open up governmental regulation and control through free/libre and open source code.