Category Archives: Research

Call for Papers: 7th International Workshop on Foundations and Techniques for Open Source Software Certification (OpenCert 2013)

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7th International Workshop on Foundations and Techniques for Open Source Software Certification (OpenCert 2013), Monday 23 September 2013, Madrid, Spain,
http://opencert.iist.unu.edu, at the 11th International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM 2013), September 25-27, 2013, Madrid, Spain, http://antares.sip.ucm.es/sefm2013

Context / Objectives

Over the past decade, the Open Source Software (OSS) phenomenon has had a global impact on the way software systems and software-based services are developed, distributed and deployed. Widely acknowledged benefits of OSS include reliability, low development and maintenance costs, as well as rapid code turnover. Linux distributions, Apache and MySQL server, and Moodle LMS are, among many other examples, a testimony to its success and resilience.

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On the Technology Behind the Wikipedia Sexism Debate on “American Women Novelists”

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The English Wikipedia is currently embroiled in a debate on sexism (local copy), because of classifying female American novelists as “American Women Novelists” while leaving male American novelists in the more general category “American Novelists”, suggesting a subordinate role of female novelists. I find this debate regrettable for the apparent sexism but also interesting for the technology underlying such changes, which I would like to focus on here.

With technology, I mean bureaucratic practices, conceptual modeling of the world and Wikipedia content, and software tools to support changes to those models.

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A Dual Model of Open Source License Growth

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Abstract: Every open source project needs to decide on an open source license. This decision is of high economic relevance: Just which license is the best one to help the project grow and attract a community? The most common question is: Should the project choose a restrictive (reciprocal) license or a more permissive one? As an important step towards answering this question, this paper analyses actual license choice and correlated project growth from ten years of open source projects. It provides closed analytical models and finds that around 2001 a reversal in license choice occurred from restrictive towards permissive licenses.

Keywords: Open source; open source license; software license; open source project growth

Reference: Gottfried Hofmann, Dirk Riehle, Carsten Kolassa, Wolfgang Mauerer. “A Dual Model of Open Source License Growth.” In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2013). Springer Verlag, 2013, to appear.

The paper is available as a PDF file.

A Model of Product Features in Commercial Open Source Software

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Abstract: Commercial open source software has become an important part of the packaged software product industry. This paper provides a model of individual product features, rather than full-fledged business models, and their perceived value to customers. The model is the result of a three-iteration study, including interview analysis, literature review and the implementation of an empirical survey. Companies can use the feature model to determine their products and business model.

Keywords: Commercial open source; software product features

Reference: Florian Weikert, Dirk Riehle. “A Model of Commercial Open Source Software Product Features.” In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Software Business (ICSOB 2013). Springer Verlag, 2013, to appear.

The paper is available as a PDF file.

Call for Papers: PLoP 2013, the International Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs

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The 20th Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs

October 23–26, 2013—Allerton Park, Monticello, IL, USA

The International Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs

April 1994: Members of the small, eclectic, and informal Hillside group gathered in Ben Lomond, California, for their yearly retreat and in the redwoods that Spring hatched a plan that was PLoP 1994. In response to the criticism that by putting together such an unconventional conference they would show they didn’t know what they were doing, one of them suggested, “then let’s pretend to know.”

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, PLoP in 2013 will return to its first home, Allerton Park, and the conference program will include a variety of special events alongside the usual PLoP fare.

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Best of Our Empirical Open Source Work (Abstract)

I’m at SOFSEM 2013, where I’ll present my current stock research talk: “Best of Our Empirical Open Source Work.” It is an invited talk. I’ve given it a few times now and expect to do many more during the course of 2013. Here is the abstract of this “best-of” talk:

Open source software is publicly developed software. Thus, for the first time, we can broadly analyse in data-driven detail how people program, how bugs come about, and how we could improve our tools. In this talk, I’ll review six years of our open source empirical (data) research and highlight the most interesting insights, including how different (or not) open source is from closed source programming.

Let me know if you are interested!

Announcing OpenSym 2013, the Open Symposium!

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OpenSym is the conference for open collaboration researchers and practitioners, including free/libre/open source software, but also open access, open data, open government, and open innovation. OpenSym 2013 will be held for the first time in 2013, on Aug 5-7, in Hong Kong, China. OpenSym joins hands with WikiSym, an established conference that brings together wiki and Wikipedia researchers and practitioners. WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 will co-locate with Wikimania 2013, the Wikipedia (and related) user conference.

OpenSym is unique in bringing together all strands of “open researchers” and I can’t wait to see how it works out! It is truly an exciting time to experience how researchers and practitioners join hands across disciplines to make the world a better place!

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Planned Inner Source: Code Reuse Across Profit-Center Boundaries (in German)

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Abstract: Wiederverwendung von Softwarekomponenten verspricht, Softwareentwicklung schneller und günstiger zu machen und die Ergebnisqualität zu steigern. Trotz diverser methodischer Ansätze ist es für viele Softwareentwicklungsorganisationen schwierig geblieben, diese Ziele auch nur ansatzweise zu erreichen. Vor diesem Hintergrund bietet „Inner Source“, die Verwendung von Open-Source-Praktiken in der firmeninternen Softwareentwicklung, neue Chancen. Inner-Source-Software ist Software, die innerhalb eines Unternehmens über Profit-Center-Grenzen hinweg in Gemeinschaftsarbeit entwickelt wird und von allen Abteilungen genutzt werden kann. In diesem Artikel stellen wir die bisher gewonnenen Erfahrungen mit Inner-Source-Entwicklung dar, definieren organisatorische Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten und prognostizieren die Entstehung von Inner-Source-Organisationen, einer neuen Form der Organisation für die Wiederverwendung.

Keywords: Open source; inner source; software code reuse; knowledge sharing; firm-internal open source; open collaboration

Reference: Dirk Riehle, Detlef Kips. Geplanter Inner Source: Ein Weg zur Profit-Center-übergreifenden Wiederverwendung. Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg Technical Report CS-2012-05. Erlangen, Germany: 2012.

The paper is available as a PDF file.

A Model of the Commit Size Distribution of Open Source

Abstract: A fundamental unit of work in programming is the code contribution (“commit”) that a developer makes to the code base of the project in work. We use statistical methods to derive a model of the probabilistic distribution of commit sizes in open source projects and we show that the model is applicable to different project sizes. We use both graphical as well as statistical methods to validate the goodness of fit of our model. By measuring and modeling a fundamental dimension of programming we help improve software development tools and our understanding of software development.

Keywords: Open source; commit sizes; commit size distribution; configuration management; code contributions.

Reference: Carsten Kolassa, Dirk Riehle, Michel A. Salim. “A Model of the Commit Size Distribution of Open Source.” In Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science (SOFSEM 2013), LNCS 7741. Springer Verlag, 2013. Page 52-66.

The paper is available as a PDF file.

The One Publisher to Boycott @ReedElsevierHQ

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If there is one for-profit publisher to boycott, it is Elsevier. Here is the proof. My university, the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, just published a list of the most expensive journals it is subscribed to. 19 out of 20 are Elsevier journals (page in German). My university’s library is in a negotiation stale-mate with Elsevier, which is not budging on the price of these journals. This is for research papers delivered to Elsevier for free, reviewed and edited for free, all by the scientific community.

I ask you not to submit your research work to Elsevier journals. I ask you not even to cite papers from Elsevier journals unless you absolutely have to. Please. In the name of science, scientific freedom, and equal access for all to research publications.

Thank you for fighting the good fight!