The Factors Affecting User Experience Maturity in Free and Open Source Software Community: An Empirical Study

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is not only seen by computer science departments as an optional free and low cost technology to support their IT infrastructure and administrative duties, but also as a methodology to improve pedagogy and provide opportunities for students to learn. As a result, many teachers are turning to FOSS projects and communities as effective tools to teach computer science courses and give their students significant real-world experience. However, few teaching and learning models exist that can help computer science teachers provide guidance and mentorship for their students' involvement in FOSS projects. In order to address this gap in computer science education, this paper presents a teaching and learning model that was evaluated using a series of pilot studies conducted with software engineering students. Experiences and lessons learnt from the pilot studies shows one possible way teachers can guide students' involvement in FOSS projects and how this approach can be integrated into a formally structured curriculum. Index Terms—Capstone projects, computer science education, curriculum design, open source software communities, open source software projects, software engineering.

The popularity of User Experience (UX) is exponentially mounting because it predicts users’ engagement through satisfying needs. It further determines product success, revenues augmentation, employee gratifications, user errors, and vital supports. However, contemporary UX Capability Maturity Models (UXCMMs) do not adequately address Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) UX, a substantiated root of adoption misfortune. Improving UX may result from a precise appraisal of the as-is organisational status. Although Software Engineering endorses CMMI, ISO 15504/ISO/IECTS 33061 and UXCMMs for this judgement, none has processes for evaluating FOSSs’ UX. Moreover, the FOSS community has neither theories nor hypotheses to map UXCMMs’ formulation processes. It knows very little regarding their practical applicability, which leaves functional relevance uncertainties. In retorting to present uncertainties, this study accomplished the Systematic Literature Review and encountered eight pertinent articles. They show that most UXCMMs originated from recognised models. Moreover, neither developed nor validated experimentally, used similar methodologies with patched documents and are not exclusive for the FOSS community. They neither handle challenges properly nor reflect earlier studies’ endorsements. The study’s contributions to discovered gaps include proposing additional research areas and a FOSS-specific UXCMMs development checklist to identify UX metrics and standardise UXCMMs’ development processes.

With the growth of free and open source software (FOSS) and the adoption of FOSS solutions in business and everyday life, it is important that projects serve their growingly diverse user base. The sustainability of FOSS projects relies on a constant influx of new contributors. Several large demographic surveys found that FOSS communities are very homogenous, dominated by young men, similar to the bias existing in the rest of the IT workforce. Building on previous research, we examine mailing list subscriptions and posting statistics of female FOSS participants. New participants often experience their first interaction on a FOSS project’s mailing list. We explored six FOSS projects – Buildroot, Busybox, Jaws, Parrot, uClibc, and Yum. We found a declining rate of female participation from the 8.27% of subscribers, to 6.63% of posters, and finally the often reported code contributor rate of 1.5%. We found a disproportionate attrition rate among women along every step of the FOSS joining process.

Free and open-source software (FOSS) communities constitute an arena in which thousands of users voluntarily explore design codes, spot bugs in codes, and make contributions to the code in a fashion at odds with the otherwise hugely competitive software market. This computerisation movement emerged as a challenge to the domination of such behemoth firms as Microsoft and IBM, and is portrayed as having a revolutionary ultimate goal: ‘to provide free software to do all of the jobs computer users want to do’ (Free Software Foundation, 2008). We ask to what extent FOSS actually challenges the orthodoxy: does ego-less programming of the information bazaar really free participants from the stuffy pews of the cathedral, and challenge the essence of capitalism?

Student involvement in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) holds the potential to support a wide range software engineering education topics from requirements to design to testing and more. In addition, participation in a FOSS project exposes students to large, complex software projects and real-world development teams and environments like those that they will typically see after graduation. However, identifying a project appropriate for student involvement can be a difficult task. There are a huge number of possible FOSS projects with a wide range of sizes, complexity, and domains. The presenters of this workshop have developed an approach to FOSS project identification [1] which is based on several years of experience with student participation in FOSS projects. The approach is based on humanitarian FOSS (HFOSS) as those projects have been shown to motivate students [2]. During the workshop, key criteria for evaluating a FOSS project will be presented, along with a rubric. This workshop will interactively walk participants through the process of identifying and evaluating a project appropriate for their classes based on the criteria and rubric.

Excerpt: Worldwide, governments are growingly focusing on free and open source software (FOSS) as a move toward transparency and the freedom to run, copy, study, change and improve the software. The European Commission (EC) is also supporting the development of FOSS [...]. In addition to the financial savings, FOSS contributes to scientific knowledge freedom in computational science (CS) and is increasingly rewarded in the science-policy interface within the emerging paradigm of open science. Since complex computational science applications may be affected by software uncertainty, FOSS may help to mitigate part of the impact of software errors by CS community- driven open review, correction and evolution of scientific code. The continental scale of EC science-based policy support implies wide networks of scientific collaboration. Thematic information systems also may benefit from this approach within reproducible integrated modelling. This is supported by the EC strategy on FOSS: the development of new information systems, where deployment is foreseen by parties outside of the EC infrastructure, [F]OSS will be the preferred choice and in any case used whenever possible. The aim of this contribution is to highlight how a continental scale information system may exploit and integrate FOSS technologies within the transdisciplinary research underpinning such a complex system. A European example is discussed where FOSS innervates both the structure of the information system itself and the inherent transdisciplinary research for modelling the data and information which constitute the system content. [...]

Systematic review of free and open source software (FOSS) employed in ecomorphological studies with recommendations for user-friendly developments

Indexed 3D Scene Layers (I3S), an OGC Community Standard for streaming and storing massive amounts of geospatial content has been rapidly evolving to capture new use cases and techniques to advance geospatial visualization and analysis. As an OGC Community Standard, I3S has been evolving over the last 4 years adopting new use cases and capability. The current version of OGC I3S 1.3 adopted in Dec. 2022 enables efficient transmission of various 3D geospatial data types including discrete 3D objects with attributes, integrated surface meshes and point cloud data covering vast geographic areas as well as highly detailed BIM (Building Information Model) content, to web browsers, mobile apps and desktop.As an open standard, I3S has been embraced by the Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) Community for streaming massive 3D geospatial content. Enabling composition of 3d geospatial content covering different disciplines and use cases is the strength of I3S. In this paper, we’ll describe and demonstrate, including via applicable code snippets and sandcastles, I3S consumption in popular web-based 3D visualization applications such as loaders.gl and CesiumJS. 

Recently, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has emerged as an alternative to Commercial-Off- The-Shelf (COTS) software. Now, FOSS is perceived as a viable long-term solution that deserves careful consideration because of its potential for significant cost savings, improved reliability, and numerous advantages over proprietary software. However, the secure integration of FOSS in IT infrastructures is very challenging and demanding. Methodologies and technical policies must be adapted to reliably compose large FOSS-based software systems. A DRDC Valcartier-Concordia University feasibility study completed in March 2004 concluded that the most promising approach for securing FOSS is to combine advanced design patterns and Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP). Following the recommendations of this study a three years project have been conducted as a collaboration between Concordia University, DRDC Valcartier, and Bell Canada. This paper aims at presenting the main contributions of this project. It consists of a practical framework with the underlying solid semantic foundations for the security evaluation and hardening of FOSS.

Purpose– This paper aims to add to the understanding of knowledge sharing in online communities through an investigation of the relationship between individual participant’s motivations and management in open source software (OSS) communities. Drawing on a review of literature concerning knowledge sharing in organisations, the factors that motivate participants to share their knowledge in OSS communities, and the management of such communities, it is hypothesised that the quality of management influences the extent to which the motivations of members actually result in knowledge sharing.Design/methodology/approach– To test the hypothesis, quantitative data were collected through an online questionnaire survey of OSS web developers with the aim of gathering respondents’ opinions concerning knowledge sharing, motivations to share knowledge and satisfaction with the management of OSS projects. Factor analysis, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis were used to explore the survey data.Findings– The analysis of the data reveals that the individual participant’s satisfaction with the management of an OSS project is an important factor influencing the extent of their personal contribution to a community.Originality/value– Little attention has been devoted to understanding the impact of management in OSS communities. Focused on OSS developers specialising in web development, the findings of this paper offer an important original contribution to understanding the connections between individual members’ satisfaction with management and their motivations to contribute to an OSS project. The findings reveal that motivations to share knowledge in online communities are influenced by the quality of management. Consequently, the findings suggest that appropriate management can enhance knowledge sharing in OSS projects and online communities, and organisations more generally.

Is Open Source About Innovation? How Interactions with the Open Source Community Impact on the Innovative Performances of Entrepreneurial Ventures

This report discusses legal questions raised by licenses in the field of free and open source software (FOSS) and other alternative license models from a comparative perspective. It summarizes and juxtaposes national reports on said licensing schemes from 25 different jurisdictions. To begin with, the report provides general information on FOSS and alternative licensing such as relevant legislation and case-law (Sect. 17.2). It then continues to analyse FOSS and other alternative licenses in the light of contract law (Sect. 17.4) and copyright law (Sect. 17.3). For example, it addresses the questions whether alternative licenses are construed as contracts or unilateral acts and whether they contradict an author”s statutory right for equitable remuneration. Moreover, the report briefly deals with other related aspects such as potential conflicts with patent and trademark claims (Sect. 17.5). It comes to the conclusion (Sect. 17.6) that many of the legal uncertainties that FOSS and other alternative licenses like creative commons faced in the past have been resolved. However, new questions have arisen and deserve further scrutiny in the future.

The mainstreaming of Free and Open Source Software(FOSS) has been one of the most visible changes in the domain of software in the last decade. Starting out as a rallying point for techno-activists, FOSS is today a valued option supported by Governments, Businesses as well as the civil society in most parts of the word. The State of Kerala in southern India, already quite unique on a variety of social, democratic and political indicators, was the first to adopt FOSS as an instrument of State policy in 2001. As it celebrates a decade of FOSS in 2011, Kerala demonstrates the remarkable transition of FOSS into a cost-effective, pragmatic, and technologically sound strategy that simultaneously upholds the principles of freedom and democracy. Given that software is set to permeate most aspects of humanendeavor, the use of FOSS is an example for a highly sustainable-socially, politically and technologically-model of use of ICTs for humanity.

Many developing countries around the world are frequently confronted with a dual challenge of simultaneously developing IT infrastructure and implementing software solutions. Some countries have successfully created extensive information technology infrastructures, yet software use continues to be reliant on pirated sources. The experiences of licensing regulation violations and increasing virus attacks indicate that part of the problem is a consequence of dependencies created by the use of proprietary software within resource-scarce economies. Recent growth in the use of free and open-source software (FOSS) by various public- and private-sector agencies suggests an alternative path to software self-sufficiency for a resource-scarce country like Cuba. There is, however, an interesting background to current software use within Cuba that makes it unique among several less-developed countries. Apart from the well-known advantages, FOSS use could be essential to shape the future scenario of Cuba. The present paper first delineates some of the Cuban background, basically characterized by lack of freedom in technology ownership and access to external information. The potential of FOSS use within existing conditions in Cuba is then analyzed. Finally, conclusions are provided on the basis of a survey carried out in Cuba, arguing that there needs to be stronger political will to reduce gaps between goals and implementation reality to achieve intrinsic advantages of FOSS use successfully.

The South African cabinet adopted policy recommendations from the Government Information Technology Officer's Council pertaining to Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS). Even though the South African Cabinet has shown support for the use of FOSS through the enactment of a policy, the adoption of open source software in electronic records management seems to be slow. Proprietary software continues to be adopted and used by most public institutions, including local and provincial municipalities in South Africa. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate factors that may influence the adoption and use of FOSS for electronic records management by South African municipalities. The study adopted a qualitative research approach to collect data from 10 purposively selected municipalities in Gauteng. Data were analysed and presented thematically to address the research question. The findings of this study suggest that municipalities in Gauteng are not adopting FOSS for electronic records management as expected. This study established that top management support, reliability, affordability of the software, inadequate capability, contracts with proprietary software providers, organisational culture and organisational support are some of the factors that contributed to the low uptake when it comes to the adoption of Free and Open-Source Software by the municipalities.