377 research outputs found
An evaluation of the historical issues associated with achieving non-helicopter V/STOL capability and the search for the flying car
No full textCopyright @ 2010 The Royal Aeronautical Society. This article is the final author version of the published paper.Combined Vertical and short take-off and landing, or ‘V/STOL’ capability has been of great demand and interest in the field of aeronautics since the creation of the aircraft. V/STOL capability is a targeted capability for many projected or prototype future aircraft. Past V/STOL aircraft are reviewed and analysed with regard to their performance parameters. This research has found two embedded categories in this class of aircraft based on their propulsion systems, i.e. jet and non-jet propulsion, and highlights the significant performance differences between them. In light of historical experience the performance of a relatively new class of aircraft, the flying cars, has been evaluated
Successful reuse of software components: A report from the open source perspective
No full textCopyright @ 2011 Springer Berlin HeidelbergA promising way of software reuse is Component-Based Software Development (CBSD). There is an increasing number of OSS products available that can be freely used in product development. However, OSS communities themselves have not yet taken full advantage of the “reuse mechanism”. Many OSS projects duplicate effort and code, even when sharing the same application domain and topic. One successful counter-example is the FFMpeg multimedia project, since several of its components are widely and consistently reused into other OSS projects. This paper documents the history of the libavcodec library of components from the FFMpeg project, which at present is reused in more than 140 OSS projects. Most of the recipients use it as a black-box component, although a number of OSS projects keep a copy of it in their repositories, and modify it as such. In both cases, we argue that libavcodec is a successful example of reusable OSS library of components.The work of Klaas-Jan Stol is partially funded by IRCSET under grant no. RS/2008/134 and by Science Foundation Ireland grant 03/CE2/I303 1 to Lero (www.lero.ie)
A Comparison Framework for Open Source Software Evaluation Methods
No full textThe use of Open Source Software (OSS) components has become a viable alternative to Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components in product development. Since the quality of OSS products varies widely, both industry and the research community have reported several OSS evaluation methods that are tailored to the specific characteristics of OSS. We have performed a systematic identification of these methods, and present a comparison framework to compare these methods.Klaas-Jan Stol, Muhammad Ali Baba
Participation Inequality and the 90-9-1 Principle in Open Source
No full textParticipation inequality is a major challenge in any shared-resource system. This is known as the "volunteer's dilemma": everybody wants to benefit from a resource without contributing, expecting others will do the work. This paper explores whether this problem also arises in open source development. In particular, we analyze the behaviour of GitHub users to assess whether the 90-9-1 principle applies to open source. We study it both from a qualitative (ratio of activity types) and a quantitative (total number of activities) perspective and we show that the principle does not hold if we consider the GitHub platform as a whole. Surprisingly, results are reversed depending on the specific projects we look at. We believe these results are useful to project managers to better understand and optimize the behaviour of the community around their projects and, as a side effect, they show the importance of diversity in sample selection
Challenges in using open source software in product development:A review of the literature
No full textThis workshop was conducted as part of the ACM/IEEE 32nd International Conference on Software EngineeringComponent-Based Software Development has become a popular approach to building software intensive systems. Besides using Commercial Off-The-Shelf components, an organization may choose to use Open Source Software components. Using OSS has been reported to have many benefits, but there are also challenges involved. Understanding the potential challenges of using OSS in developing products is important for practitioners, so they become aware of them and can anticipate them and take appropriate measures to address these challenges. We have performed a thorough review of the literature to identify challenges that may arise, as reported in the literature. This paper presents and discusses these findings. Researchers can discuss potential causes and solutions of our synthesized findings as well as benefit from provided references to literature on OSS challenges as input for future research.Klaas-Jan Stol, Muhammad Ali Baba
Is it all lost? A study of inactive open source projects
No full textThis is the post-print version of the published chapter. The original publication is available at the link below. Copyright @ 2013 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.Open Source Software (OSS) proponents suggest that when developers lose interest in their project, their last duty is to “hand it off to a competent successor.” However, the mechanisms of such a hand-off are not clear, or widely known among OSS developers. As a result, many OSS projects, after a certain long period of evolution, stop evolving, in fact becoming “inactive” or “abandoned” projects. This paper presents an analysis of the population of projects contained within one of the largest OSS repositories available (SourceForge.net), in order to describe how projects abandoned by their developers can be identified, and to discuss the attributes and characteristics of these inactive projects. In particular, the paper attempts to differentiate projects that experienced maintainability issues from those that are inactive for other reasons, in order to be able to correlate common characteristics to the “failure” of these projects
The use of empirical methods in open source software research: Facts, trends and future directions
No full textOpen Source Software (OSS) is a field of study with increasing interest of researchers. By its nature, OSS is especially suitable for empirical research. A great number of OSS related empirical studies have been conducted, but no effort has been made to systematically review the published evidence. This paper presents the results of a systematic review to investigate research topics and used methods in OSS related research. We present our results as facts and trends in this field and provide directions for future research.Klaas-Jan Stol, Muhammad Ali Babar, Barbara Russo and Brian Fitzgeral
Supporting product development with software from the bazaar
No full textTHERE ARE VARIOUS scenarios for a software development organisation to adopt Open Source Software (OSS). One scenario is the adoption of OSS products in order to integrate them as components into a final
software product. Another scenario is the adoption of OSS development
practices within the confines of an organisation; this is called “Inner
Source”. In both cases, the software product that is developed is used in
component-based software development (CBSD) to build large-scale products. Also, in both cases, such software is developed by a
“community”, or using Raymond’s metaphor, in a “bazaar”. In the first case, the bazaar is external, and in the second case the bazaar is internal to the organisation.
Both scenarios have been reported as providing benefit to organisations. However, little research has been conducted to identify and document the challenges that practitioners may encounter in these two
scenarios. The research in this thesis is divided into two strands, one for
each scenario. The first research strand consists of a systematic identification of
challenges in using OSS in product development. One of the most frequently reported challenges is the evaluation and selection of components. This was followed by an analysis of existing OSS evaluation
methods proposed so far. These methods seem to pay little attention to a product’s software architecture, which has been identified as a critical success factor in CBSD. To gain insight whether or not practitioners are, in fact, interested in architectural knowledge (AK) of an OSS product, an empirical survey was conducted. One of the findings was that practitioners are interested in certain cases in a component’s architectural patterns. Since there exists no guidance to identify architectural patterns (as opposed to design patterns), the thesis proposes a process to guide the task of identifying architectural patterns in an OSS product.
The research continued by investigating the second scenario, which is Inner Source. This strand of research started with an
investigation of challenges at an Inner Source organisation. These challenges were categorised and compared to the challenges identified for the external bazaar. This was followed by a literature-based framework
that an organisation may use to assess its fit with Inner Source. In summary, by identifying and documenting challenges and
needs, and by proposing guidance to practitioners, the contributions of
this thesis support product development with software from the bazaar.ICRSET grant RS/2008/134SFI grant no 03/CE2/I202_
Design and Evaluation of a Process for Identifying Architecture Patterns in Open Source Software
No full textArchitecture patterns have a direct effect (positive or negative) on a system’s quality attributes (e.g., performance). Therefore, information about patterns used in a product can provide valuable insights to, e.g., component integrators who wish to evaluate a software product. Unfortunately, this information is often not readily available, in particular for Open Source Software (OSS) products, which are increasingly used in component-based development. This paper presents the design and evaluation of a process for Identifying Architecture Patterns in OSS (“IDAPO”). The results of the evaluation suggest that IDAPO is helpful to identify potentially present patterns, and that a process framework may provide better opportunities for tailoring to the users’ needs.Klaas-Jan Stol, Paris Avgeriou, Muhammad Ali Baba
Communicating Study Design Trade-offs in Software Engineering
No full textReflecting on the limitations of a study is a crucial part of the research process. In software engineering studies, this reflection is typically conveyed through discussions of study limitations or threats to validity. In current practice, such discussions seldom provide sufficient insight to understand the rationale for decisions taken before and during the study, and their implications. We revisit the practice of discussing study limitations and threats to validity and identify its weaknesses. We propose to refocus this practice of self-reflection to a discussion centered on the notion of trade-offs. We argue that documenting trade-offs allows researchers to clarify how the benefits of their study design decisions outweigh the costs of possible alternatives. We present guidelines for reporting trade-offs in a way that promotes a fair and dispassionate assessment of researchers’ work
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