• Understanding and using patterns in software development (with Heinz Züllighoven)

It just reached the 200-citation boundary. Hard on its heels are these:

• Role model based framework design and integration (with Thomas Gross)
• Composite design patterns
• Role object (with Dirk Bäumer, Wolf Siberski, and Martina Wulf)

The fastest growing paper (in terms of citations) is this 2007 paper:

• The economic motivation of open source software: Stakeholder perspectives

The “leading” papers are all older papers, as implied by using citations as a measure of relevance. Of course I’m looking forward to my new open source publications catching up on the software engineering papers. Now back to my employer’s year end report, sigh.

Our paper provides a high-quality model of a key aspect of programming behavior in open source, basically the modeling behind this earlier empirical paper. As such, it is a descriptive empirical paper. It takes a large amount of data and provides an analytically closed model of the data so that we can explain or predict the future (better). That’s pretty standard operating procedure in most of natural and social sciences.

Suggest to a physicist that a paper that explains how a particle spins can only be published if in the same paper the physicist shows how to make the particle spin backwards. Or contribute to human well-being. He or she will give you the finger. Suggest to a sociologist that it is not enough to understand medical practices in a hospital, that he or she in the same paper also has to provide empirical validation on how to improve these practices. You’ll be out the door before you can say I’m sorry.

Only in engineering research do we seem to see no value in seeking knowledge and truth for its own sake. Only in engineering research is merit defined by how some work improves the world. Maybe that’s why many don’t consider it a science. It seems obvious to me that before improvement comes understanding, but in repeated experiences with ICSE and elsewhere, reviewers consistently require that both of it has to be packaged into the same 10 page paper. I think this is ludicrous.

I can accept an argument that some particular knowledge is of little merit because it is uninteresting. I cannot accept the requirement that deep and interesting insight only gains publishable merit by being combined with its application in some context.

Happy new year and a successful 2012 to everyone!

Dirk

PS: Some explanation for those not working in computer science / software engineering. ICSE is the top conference of the field, by most measures, and ranks higher than the journals. (Which is another weird thing about computer science, but not of concern here.) Computer scientists don’t like to read (a lot) and hate discursive papers (try publishing Grounded Theory work) so many publishing outlets have stringent page requirements, typically 10 pages or 10000 words.

Reference: Dirk Riehle, Carsten Kolassa, Michel A. Salim. “Developer Belief vs. Reality: The Case of the Commit Size Distribution.” In Proceedings of Software Engineering 2012 (SE ’12). Springer Verlag, 2012.

The paper is available as a PDF file. The survey used in the paper is also available as a PDF file.

Zusammenfassung: In fast jedem Softwareprodukt, auch in großer Standardsoftware, sind heute Open-Source-Komponenten enthalten. Die Hersteller dieser Software müssen die Geschäftsrisiken, die mit der Integration von Open-Source-Software in kommerzielle Produkte verbunden sind, verstehen und vernünftig managen. Dieser Artikel zeigt ein Modell verschiedener rechtlicher, technischer und sozialer Risiken auf, die durch unkontrollierten Einsatz von Open-Source-Software entstehen und erläutert ausgewählte Erfolgsmethoden der Open-Source-Governance, die von führenden Firmen angewandt werden. Das Modell ist das Analyseergebnis von fünf mit großen deutschen Softwareherstellern geführten Interviews sowie weiterer Literaturrecherche.

Stichwörter: Open-Source-Komponenten, Open-Source-Governance, Geistiges Eigentum, Code-Scanner, Softwareprodukte

Referenz: Martin Helmreich, Dirk Riehle. “Geschäftsrisiken und Governance von Open-Source in Softwareprodukten”. In Praxis der Wirtschaftsinformatik (HMD 283) 49. Jahrgang, Februar 2012.

Inhaltsübersicht

1. Open-Source-Komponenten in kommerziellen Produkten
2. Methodisches Vorgehen
3. Grundlagen zum geistigen Eigentum
4. Identifizierte Geschäftsrisiken
   1. Unkontrollierter und ungeregelter Einsatz von Open-Source-Komponenten
   2. Aktive Beiträge in der Open-Source-Community
   3. Verwicklung in ein Gerichtsverfahren
   4. Verpflichtung, Source-Code offenzulegen
   5. Verurteilung wegen einer Patentverletzung
5. Beispiele für Erfolgsmethoden
1. Überwachung der Lieferantenschnittstelle
2. Einsatz von Code-Scannern
3. Entwicklerausbildung
6. Integration in den Entwicklungszyklus
7. Literatur

Der Artikel ist zur Zeit nicht frei verfügbar. Sie können aber über mich eine Vorabversion erhalten. Dazu nehmen Sie bitte Email-Kontakt mit mir auf. Sechs Monate nach Veröffentlichung wird der Artikel dann hier direkt als PDF zur Verfügung stehen.

THE 8th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON OPEN SOURCE SYSTEMS

Hammamet, Tunisia, 10-13 September 2012

Scope of OSS 2012

Over the past two decades, Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) has introduced new successful models for creating, distributing, acquiring and using software and software-based services. Inspired by the success of FLOSS, other forms of open initiatives have been gaining momentum. Open source systems (OSS) now extend beyond software to include open access, open documents, open science, open education, open government, open cloud, open hardware, open artworks and museum exhibits, open innovation and more. On the one hand, the openness movement has created new kinds of opportunities such as the emergence of new business models, knowledge exchange mechanisms, and collective development approaches. On the other hand, the movement has introduced new kinds of challenges, especially as different problem domains embrace openness as a pervasive problem solving strategy. OSS can be complex yet widespread and often cross-cultural. Consequently, they require an interdisciplinary understanding of their technical, economic, legal and socio-cultural dynamics.

The goal of 8th International Conference on Open Source Systems, OSS 2012, the first to be held in Africa, is to provide an international forum where a diverse community of professionals from academia, industry and public sector, and diverse OSS initiatives can come together to share research findings and practical experiences. The conference is also meant to provide information and education to practitioners, identify directions for further research, and to be an ongoing platform for technology transfer, no matter which form of OSS is being pursued.

OSS 2012 accepts submissions in the following categories: research papers, industry papers, formal tool demonstrations, lightning talks and posters. OSS 2012 also invites proposals for tutorials and workshops, submissions to the doctoral symposium, and submissions of panels. Accepted papers will be included in the conference proceedings, which are published by Springer. The major conference theme is long-term sustainability with OSS.

Topics of Interest

OSS sustainability

• Sustainability models of OSS
• Building sustainable OSS communities
• Role of OSS in ICT and sustainable development
• Mining sustainability related data from OSS communities
• Experience reports and lessons on sustainable OSS ecosystems

OSS as innovation

• Adoption/ use / acceptance of OSS
• Dissemination / redistribution / crowdsourcing of OSS systems
• Expanding scientific research and technology development methods through openness
• Adopting innovation in OSS projects

OSS practices and methods

• OSS and traditional / agile development methods
• OSS and decentralized development
• Knowledge and documentation management in OSS

OSS technologies

• OSS over the Internet
• Security of OSS
• Interoperability / portability / scalability of OSS
• Open standards / open data / open cloud / open hardware / open exhibits
• Reuse in OSS
• OSS for entertainment
• OSS for education
• Architecture and design of OSS

Economic / organizational / social issues on OSS

• Economic analysis of OSS
• Business models of OSS
• Maturity models of OSS
• OSS in public sector
• OSS intellectual property, copyrights and licensing
• Non-Governmental Organizations and OSS

Important Dates (Deadlines)

1. Submissions due: March 9, 2012
2. Workshop proposals: March 16, 2012
3. Panels and tutorials proposals: May 25, 2012
4. Results to authors: April 13, 2012
5. Camera-ready copy due: May 11, 2012
6. Early registration: June 15, 2012

Submission

Upload contributions in PDF format at http://oss2012.org/.

Organization

General Chairs

• Walt Scacchi, University of California, Irvine, USA
• Tommi Mikkonen, Tampere University of Technology, Finland

Program Chairs

• Imed Hammouda, Tampere University of Technology, Finland
• Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

Local Organizing Chairs

• Said Ouerghi, University of Manouba, Tunisia
• Khaled Sammoud, University of Tunis el Manar, Tunisia

Call for Papers 征稿启事

The European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP) is the premium international conference covering all areas of object technology and related software development technologies. ECOOP 2012 will take place from 11-16 June, 2012 in Beijing, China — only the second time ECOOP has been held outside Europe. ECOOP 2012 embraces a broad range of topics related to object-orientation, including:

• Analysis and design methods and patterns
• Databases, persistence, transactions
• Concurrent, parallel, distributed, mobile, and real-time systems
• Empirical and application studies
• Frameworks, product lines, software architectures
• Language design and implementation
• Modularity, aspects, features, components, services, reflection
• Software development environments and tools
• Static and dynamic software analysis, testing, and metrics
• Theoretical foundations, type systems, formal methods
• Versioning, compatibility, software evolution

ECOOP 2012 solicits high quality submissions describing original and unpublished results. Papers will be evaluated according to originality and significance, precision and correctness, presentation and clarity, and relevance. Incremental improvements over previously published work should have been evaluated through systematic, comparative, empirical or experimental evaluation. Submissions of papers describing groundbreaking approaches to emerging problems will be considered based on timeliness and potential impact.

Only papers that have not been published and are not under review for publication elsewhere may be submitted. Double submissions will be rejected without review. Authors are required to disclose prior publication (formal or informal) of parts of the paper submitted to ECOOP or of closely related papers. Such prior publications must be cited and their relationship to the current submission explained. Authors are also required to inform the ECOOP 2012 program chair about closely related work submitted to another conference while the ECOOP submission is under review.

Submissions will be carried out electronically via CyberChair. Papers must be written in English, and be no longer than 25 pages, including references, appendices and figures, and written using the LNCS style. For more information about formatting please consult the Springer LNCS web site at http://www.springer.com. Clearly marked additional appendices, not intended for the final publication, containing supporting proofs, analyses, statistics, etc, may be included beyond the 25 page limit. The paper must stand alone, however, and reviewers are under no obligation to read any additional appendices. Reviewers are more likely to consult additional appendices rather than separate technical reports. ECOOP papers will be reviewed by the programme committee and additional expert reviewers: authors will have the opportunity to respond to reviews before the programme committee meeting.

For ECOOP 2012, submissions that have been submitted but not accepted by previous prestigious conferences (such as ECOOP, OOPSLA, POPL, PLDI, ICSE, or AOSD) may additionally submit a Note to Reviewers. The Note to Reviewers should a) identify the previous venue(s) (e.g. ECOOP’2011, OOPSLA’2010); b) list the major issues identified by the reviews at those venues; and c) describe the changes made to the paper in response to those reviews.

Important dates 重要日期

Submission deadline

17 December 2011, 23:59 (Samoa)

Author rebuttals

13-14 February 2012

Acceptance notification

29 February 2012

More information

For more information, see the ECOOP 2012 website.

Call for Contributions (SPLC 2012)

We invite the following classes of contributions:

1. Research papers: (max. 10 pages, 5 for short papers) describe original research contributions (theoretical, conceptual) to the field of software product line engineering. We also call for short research papers, which are intended to report ideas in their early stages. Submission deadline: Feb. 20th, 2012.
2. Industrial papers: (max. 10 pages for full, 5 for short papers) describe experience in introducing, implementing and evolving product lines and success stories or problem reports of applications of product line engineering methods, techniques and tools in industry. Submission deadline: Feb. 20th, 2012. All research and full industry papers will be included in the conference proceedings, which will be published through the ACM Digital Library.
3. Workshops: The purpose of the workshop program is to provide a forum for bringing together people from industry, academia, and research institutions to present and discuss research results and practices. Workshops should be organized as full-day events. Submission deadline: March 1st, 2012.
4. Tutorials: Tutorials will be held during the conference week in full-day or half-day sessions. A tutorial proposal consists of two pages describing the topic, the plan for conducting the tutorial, and the backgrounds of the presenters and the tutorial. We explicitly invite tutorials that have been held at other events. Submission deadline: March 1st, 2012.
5. Submissions to Hall of Fame: Each SPLC culminates with a session in which members of the audience nominate systems for induction into the Software Product Line Hall of Fame. Those nominations feed discussions about what constitutes excellence and success in product lines. More information on nominations and election can be found at the conference website or at http://www.splc.net/fame.html
6. Demonstrations and Tools: Demonstrations show the application of novel product line engineering concepts and techniques in practice. The demonstration with realistic use cases is encouraged. Submission deadline: April 30th, 2012.
7. Doctoral Symposium: The Doctoral Symposium gives doctoral students the opportunity to discuss their research plans with experienced members of the community. Submission deadline: May 18th, 2012.

Further information regarding the submission processes and submission dates can be found in the separate calls on the website http://www.splc2012.net/ We invite you to be part of SPLC!

Information regarding sponsoring can be found on the website.

For further information please contact contact@splc2012.net.

Keywords: Wiki, Wikipedia, Wiki Parser, Wikitext Parser, Parsing Expression Grammar, PEG, Abstract Syntax Tree, AST, WYSIWYG, Sweble.

Reference: Hannes Dohrn and Dirk Riehle. “Design and Implementation of the Sweble Wikitext Parser: Unlocking the Structured Data of Wikipedia.” In Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration (WikiSym 2011). ACM Press, 2011.

The paper is available as a PDF file (preprint).

Keywords: Wiki, Wikipedia, Wikitext, Wikitext Parser, Open Source, Sweble, Mediawiki, Mediawiki Parser, XWML, HTML, WOM

Reference: Hannes Dohrn and Dirk Riehle. WOM: An Object Model for Wikitext. University of Erlangen, Technical Report CS-2011-05 (July 2011).

The technical report is available as a PDF file.

Every real-world specification is an underspecification.

So, well, I say that, but I doubt that I’m the first one to have learned this from 30+ years of software engineering research. This principle leads us directly to the challenges anyone is facing who is trying to be truthful to the intentions behind the Open Cloud Principles.

The principles ask that all data be available using open formats and accessible through open interfaces, all based on open standards. If so, a cloud computing provider can call its services an open cloud. The intention is right. The issue is open standards, though. The hope is that you could completely specify format of and access to data and that it can be replicated by another cloud provider. Which is not going to play out that easily.

Underspecification

Given that every specification is an underspecification, any open standard will be an underspecification. It will be missing out on relevant aspects. It is unlikely to be the data layout; usually it is semantics and the meaning of the data. Between an SAP Business Suite and an underlying Oracle database, who controls the data? It is SAP, because its code realizes the interpretation of the data, not the plain storage.

If some specification is well-intentioned, it will simply not be complete enough. If a specification is ill-intentioned, all it will specify are a format for key/value pairs and leave the interpretation of such data to an application. Reading the principles does not make clear to me how to avoid such intentions. (It is probably not possible nor intended. Players who deliberately play badly will eventually be recognized as such.)

I don’t know but I’m assuming that the OCI is trying to address this issue by requiring an open source implementation for handling the data. This is the last bullet item in the definition of open standard. It is debatable whether this gets you around key/value pairs; I can imagine an open source library for handling key/value pairs that stops right where it gets interesting, i.e. the data gets interpreted. But lets assume that the open source library provides decent abstractions, e.g. object-oriented classes, whose implementation truthfully captures the semantics of the underlying domain concept. The principle of underspecification above stipulates that subtle semantics will escape those classes and will be caught by surrounding code interpreting the data. That code is unlikely to be available as open source as it is likely to be competitively differentiating.

Necessary Extensions

The second problem is that application providers simply won’t stop with standardized data types. Have you ever tried to get two business units of some company to agree on the notion of “customer”? You won’t succeed. It is the reason why we have design patterns like Role Object. The definition of “customer” will differ between different companies and even between different business units of the same company. So you need to provide extension mechanisms and you are back to storage using key/value pairs and/or running client-specific code to properly interpret client-specific extensions.

The principles are well-intentioned and send people on the right road but they not a guarantee that you can take your data from one cloud to another.

A Pragmatic Response

It is not that this isn’t a known problem. Anyone who has worked on standardization efforts has run into this. You may think that the C programming language has been specified a long-time ago and is rock-solid. But that’s not true, it is still evolving, as the recent ambiguities around the volatile keyword showed. However, long-running standardization efforts do show a pragmatic way forward: Effective standardization is not paperwork, but is effective working groups—experts and community, debating and documenting specifications, and moving forward, mole-whacking the loopholes and bugs as they keep occurring. It is a never ending effort, but a necessary one.

I’m missing this notion of working group in the list of requirements for an open standard, but I’m sure it won’t take long for them to appear respectively get channeled there.