Adoption of open source software in software-intensive organizations – A systematic literature review

ContextOpen source software (OSS) is changing the way organizations develop, acquire, use, and commercialize software.ObjectiveThis paper seeks to identify how organizations adopt OSS, classify the literature according to these ways of adopting OSS, and with a focus on software development evaluate the research on adoption of OSS in organizations.MethodBased on the systematic literature review method we reviewed publications from 24 journals and seven conference and workshop proceedings, published between 1998 and 2008. From a population of 24,289 papers, we identified 112 papers that provide empirical evidence on how organizations actually adopt OSS.ResultsWe show that adopting OSS involves more than simply using OSS products. We moreover provide a classification framework consisting of six distinctly different ways in which organizations adopt OSS. This framework is used to illustrate some of the opportunities and challenges organizations meet when approaching OSS, to show that OSS can be adopted successfully in different ways, and to organize and review existing research. We find that existing research on OSS adoption does not sufficiently describe the context of the organizations studied, and it fails to benefit fully from related research fields. While existing research covers a large number of topics, it contains very few closely related studies. To aid this situation, we offer directions for future research.ConclusionThe implications of our findings are twofold. On the one hand, practitioners should embrace the many opportunities OSS offers, but consciously evaluate the consequences of adopting it in their own context. They may use our framework and the success stories provided by the literature in their own evaluations. On the other hand, researchers should align their work, and perform more empirical research on topics that are important to organizations. Our framework may be used to position this research and to describe the context of the organization they are studying.     

A method for analyzing stakeholders’ influence on an open source software ecosystem’s requirements engineering process

Requirements Engineering - For a firm in an open source software (OSS) ecosystem, the requirements engineering (RE) process is rather multifaceted. Apart from its typical RE process, there is a...     

Users’ perception of open source usability: an empirical study

The number of open source software (OSS) users has increased in recent years. No longer are they limited to technically adept software developers. Many believe that the OSS market share could increase tremendously provided OSS had systems that were easier to use. Although examples of good usable open source software exist, it is agreed that OSS can be made more usable. This study presents an empirical investigation into the impact of some key factors on OSS usability from the end users’ point of view. The research model studies and establishes the relationship between the key usability factors from the users’ perspective and OSS usability. A data set of 102 OSS users from 13 open source projects of various sizes was used to study the research model. The results of this study provide empirical evidence by indicating that the highlighted key factors play a significant role in improving OSS usability.     

The faster the better? Innovation speed and user interest in open source software

It is often believed that for open source software (OSS) projects the faster the release, the better for attracting user interest in the software. Whether this is true, however, is still open to question. There is considerable information asymmetry between OSS projects and potential users as project quality is unobservable to users. We suggest that innovation speed of OSS project can signal the unobservable project quality and attract users’ interest in downloading and using the software. We contextualize innovation speed of OSS projects as initial release speed and update speed and examine their impacts on user interest. Drawing on the signaling theory, we propose a signaling effect through which a higher initial release speed or update speed increases user interest, while the effect diminishes as initial release or update speed increases. Using a large-scale panel data set from 7442 OSS projects on SourceForge between 2007 and 2010, our results corroborate the inverted U-shaped relationships between initial release speed and user downloads and between update speed and user downloads.     

Exploring the relationship of a file’s history and its fault-proneness: An empirical method and its application to open source programs

ContextThe knowledge about particular characteristics of software that are indicators for defects is very valuable for testers because it helps them to focus the testing effort and to allocate their limited resources appropriately.ObjectiveIn this paper, we explore the relationship between several historical characteristics of files and their defect count.MethodFor this purpose, we propose an empirical approach that uses statistical procedures and visual representations of the data in order to determine indicators for a file’s defect count. We apply this approach to nine open source Java projects across different versions.ResultsOnly 4 of 9 programs show moderate correlations between a file’s defects in previous and in current releases in more than half of the analysed releases. In contrast to our expectations, the oldest files represent the most fault-prone files. Additionally, late changes correlate with a file’s defect count only partly. The number of changes, the number of distinct authors performing changes to a file as well as the file’s age are good indicators for a file’s defect count in all projects.ConclusionOur results show that a software’s history is a good indicator for ist quality. We did not find one indicator that persists across all projects in an equal manner. Nevertheless, there are several indicators that show significant strong correlations in nearly all projects: DA (number of distinct authors) and FC (frequency of change). In practice, for each software, statistical analyses have to be performed in order to evaluate the best indicator(s) for a file’s defect count.     

Extending Amdahl’s law and Gustafson’s law by evaluating interconnections on multi-core processors

Multicore chips are emerging as the mainstream solution for high performance computing. Generally, communication overheads cause large performance degradation in multi-core collaboration. Interconnects in large scale are needed to deal with these overheads. Amdahl’s and Gustafson’s law have been applied to multi-core chips but inter-core communication has not been taken into account. In this paper, we introduce interconnection into Amdahl’s and Gustafson’s law so that these laws work more precisely in the multi-core era. We further propose an area cost model and analyse our speedup models under area constraints. We find optimized parameters according to our speedup model. These parameters provide useful feedbacks to architects at an initial phase of their designs. We also present a case study to show the necessity of incorporating interconnection into Amdahl’s and Gustafson’s law.     

Balancing hydropower and environmental values: A review of the AWARE™ software

This paper reviews the AWARE^™ software, a computer program distributed by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The AWARE^™ program is designed to facilitate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) license renewal process for U.S. hydropower installations. The principal legal impetus for distributing AWARE^™ is the Electric Consumer Protection Act (ECPA) of 1986. This act directs FERC to balance power and non-power resources during hydropower relicensing. AWARE^™ was developed to aid installations in the production of successful FERC applications in the post-ECPA era. However, post-ECPA FERC relicensing decisions indicate that balancing power and non-power resources may entail costly expenditures and flow regime alterations. The AWARE^™ software suggests that these costly alterations may not increase the net social benefits produced by the nation's rivers and streams. In the present paper the AWARE^™ software is discussed from several viewpoints including that of natural resource economics, systems modeling, and the social context within which FERC licensing decisions are made. The discussion concludes that the positive impact of ECPA on U.S. fisheries could be seriously hampered by the widespread use of AWARE^™.     

Empowering the users? A critical textual analysis of the role of users in open source software development

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.

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Is software “green”? Application development environments and energy efficiency in open source applications

Context

The energy efficiency of IT systems, also referred to as Green IT, is attracting more and more attention. While several researchers have focused on the energy efficiency of hardware and embedded systems, the role of application software in IT energy consumption still needs investigation.

Objective

This paper aims to define a methodology for measuring software energy efficiency and to understand the consequences of abstraction layers and application development environments for the energy efficiency of software applications.

Method

We first develop a measure of energy efficiency that is appropriate for software applications. We then examine how the use of application development environments relates to this measure of energy efficiency for a sample of 63 open source software applications.

Results

Our findings indicate that a greater use of application development environments - specifically, frameworks and external libraries - is more detrimental in terms of energy efficiency for larger applications than for smaller applications. We also find that different functional application types have distinctly different levels of energy efficiency, with text and image editing and gaming applications being the most energy inefficient due to their intense use of the processor.

Conclusion

We conclude that different designs can have a significant impact on the energy efficiency of software applications. We have related the use of software application development environments to software energy efficiency suggesting that there may be a trade-off between development efficiency and energy efficiency. We propose new research to further investigate this topic.     

Analysis of Giouan Battista Bellaso’s cipher challenges of 1555

In his book, Noui et singolari modi di cifrare, Giouan Battista Bellaso presented to his readers three challenge ciphertexts. Two of them are based on a polyalphabetic cipher with a mixed primary reciprocal alphabet and a long key, whereas the third one uses four independent homophonic substitution alphabets that change after each word. A successful approach to solving these ciphers, to which Bellaso gave the name “terzo modo” and “quarto modo,” performs a simulated annealing attack directly on the primary alphabet, respectively the four homophonic alphabets at once. This article focuses on the various applied fitness functions. The solutions for the ciphertexts are given and finally discussed, with a view toward the possibility of a hidden message within the plaintexts.     

The influence of project initiators’ person-to-person followership on project popularity in open source communities: The role of reach and importance

Person-to-person (P2P) followership is an important aspect of major open source software (OSS) development platforms. In this age of social media platforms, P2P followership has significantly shaped the way users engage in OSS development by facilitating the establishment of connections among OSS users. Despite the prevalence of P2P followership, less is known about the impact of OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes on their project popularity. This is a particularly important gap considering the low rate of OSS project success. We posit that OSS project initiators derive information and influence benefits from the quantity and connectivity of their P2P followership nodes, explaining the popularity of the projects initiated. We determine the connectivity of OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes based on the nodes’ reach and importance. To test the hypotheses, we use a large panel dataset collected over 24 months from GitHub. The findings indicate that the quantity of OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes including followers and followees has a positive effect on their project popularity. Moreover, such an effect is mostly dependent on the connectivity of the OSS project initiators’ P2P followership nodes in such a way that highly connected P2P followership nodes do not impact influence benefits but they increase information benefits. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.     

Problems and challenges of emerging technology networks−on−chip: A review

Networks−on−chip (NoC) are an alternative to alleviate the problems of legacy interconnect fabrics. However, many emerging technology NoC are developed and are now seen as their potential substitutes. In this context, this work introduces how the NoC industry is involved in the NoC technology design−trends and promotion. Secondly, an extensive discussion on the outstanding research problems and challenges for conventional and emerging technology NoC is developed. The related security concerns are particularly investigated.     

Virtual Observations: a software tool for contextual observation and assessment of user’s actions in virtual reality

Virtual Reality - In this paper, we present ‘Virtual Observation’ (VO) a software tool for contextual observation and assessment of user’s directly from within the virtual reality...     

Neural network’s selection of color in UI design of social software

Neural Computing and Applications - In recent years, the design of social software UI has become a design research focus in the field of design. Color affects many factors in UI design. However,...     

Rethinking Global-Regulation: world’s law meets artificial intelligence

This article takes a critical look at Machine Translation of legal text, especially global legislation, through the discussion of Global-Regulation, a state of the art online search engine of the world’s legislation in English. Part 2 explains the rationale for an online platform such as Global-Regulation. Part 3 provides a brief account of the history of the development of machine translation, and it describes some of the limits of the use of statistical machine translation for translating legal texts. Part 4 describes Neural Machine Translation (NMT), which is a new generation of machine translation systems. Finally, Parts 5 and 6 outline the ‘big sky’ thoughts on future directions for Global-Regulation.     

Application of astigmatic method and snell’s law on the thickness and refractive index measurement of a transparent plate

In this study, a thickness and refractive index measuring system for the transparent plate has been proposed. The measuring system is composed of an astigmatic measurement module and a light spot measurement module using a DVD optical pickup, a laser diode and a quadrant photodiode detector. Both of the thickness and refractive index of a transparent plate are converted into the focusing error of DVD pickup based on astigmatic method and the light spot displacements based on snell’s law in our proposed system. The thickness and the refractive index are simultaneously calculated by means of two nonlinear formulas. The accuracy of the proposed system is 99 % verified by a height Gauge and the refractive index by the TF-166.     

Towards formal open standards: formalizing a standard’s requirements

Open standardization seems to be very popular among software developers as it simplifies the standard’s adoption by the software engineering. Formal specification methods, while very promising, are being adopted slowly as the industry seems to have little motivation to move into this territory. In this paper the authors present (1) the idea of applying formal specification techniques to open standards’ specifications, and (2) an example of a formal specification of the Rich Site Summary (RSS) v2.0 open standard. The authors provide evidence for the advantages of the open standards formal specification over natural language documentations: formal specifications are more concise, less ambiguous, more complete with respect to the original documentation and, when using certain kinds of specification languages, executable and reusable as they support module inheritance. The merging of formal specification methods and open standards allows (1) a more concrete standard design; (2) an improved understanding of the environment under design; (3) an enforced certain level of precision into the specification, and also (4) provides software engineers with extended property checking/verification capabilities, especially if they opt to use any algebraic specification language. The authors showcase how the RSS standard can be formally specified using an algebraic specification language and demonstrate how can that be beneficial.     

An integrated application of Kano’s model and AHP to Korean online open market services

With the advancement in wireless and mobile technologies, online open markets decrease intermediate distribution margins and play the key intermediary role between sellers and consumers. While offline store sales remain stagnant, online open market sales have been growing steadily. We investigated the service quality of Korean online open market providers such as “Gmarket”, “Auction”, and “11st”, based on an integrated application of Kano’s model and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The contributions of this study are as follows: (1) We conducted acritical review of previous literature to develop each analysis method. (2) We categorized the service quality factors of the Korean open market using Kano’s model and identified the most important service quality factor by AHP analysis. (3) Then, we conducted a comparison between the results from the Kano model and AHP analysis. (4) Lastly, based on the results of the integrated application of both Kano model and AHP analysis, this study provided specific implications for improving the service quality of the online open market in Korea.     

Classification of image distortion based on the generalized Benford’s law

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Distortion classification is an important step in blind image quality assessment. In this paper, a new image distortion classification algorithm is presented....     

Contract law 2.0: ‘Smart’ contracts as the beginning of the end of classic contract law

The paper analyzes legal issues associated with the application of existing contract law provisions to so-called Smart contracts, defined in the paper as ‘agreements existing in the form of software code implemented on the Blockchain platform, which ensures the autonomy and self-executive nature of Smart contract terms based on a predetermined set of factors’. The paper consists of several sections. In the second section, the paper outlines the peculiarities of Blockchain technology, as currently implemented in Bitcoin cryptocurrency, which forms the core of Smart contracts. In the third section, the main characteristic features of Smart contracts are described. Finally, the paper outlines key tensions between classic contract law and Smart contracts. The concluding section sets the core question for analysis of the perspectives of implementation of this technology by governments: ‘How to align the powers of the government with Blockchain if there is no central authority but only distributed technologies’. The author suggests two solutions, neither of which is optimal: (1) providing the state authorities with the status of a Superuser with extra powers; and (2) relying on traditional remedies and enforcement practices, by pursuing specific individuals – parties to a Smart contract – in offline mode.