Scacchi (2010), a
leading researcher in open source software (OSS), discusses trends in his ACM
conference proceeding, The Future of Research in Free/Open Source Software
Development. Even though many take advantage of OSS, the computer science
research community has not fully recognized OSS' potential to alter the
research and development of software intensive systems. Millions of end users
worldwide openly adopt and rely on tens of thousands of OSS projects. With such
a high adoption rate, a growing number of research projects in physical,
social, and human sciences have started to examine and adopt OSS projects to
meet their needs as well. OSS now represents an alternative community intensive
socio-technical approach to programming software.
Many topics involving
OSS still need investigating and explaining. First, an individual developer’s
interest, motivation and commitment to a project and its contributors are
dynamic in terms of participating, joining, and contributing to an OSS project.
Second, conflicts within OSS projects arise from technical decision making,
such as who is in charge of which aspects of the project. Third, building
communities and alliances points towards more dependency on the OSS projects.
Fourth, the socio-technical web of OSS projects in terms of shared resources
poses questions of how this dynamic structure solidifies. Lastly, more
empirical studies that analyze, discover, and learn the large OSS ecosystem are
needed.
Scacchi (2010) concludes
by saying OSS development is emerging as an alternative approach to develop
large software systems. OSS employs socio-technical practices, development
processes, and community networking. OSS offer new practices, processes, and
projects for study and comparison to the tradition software model. Many new
research opportunities exist in the empirical examination, modeling, and
simulation of OSS projects.
Reference
Scacchi, W. (2010). The
Future of Research in Free/Open Source Software Development. ACM conference
proceedings.
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