scholarly journals Understanding the Causes of Architecture Changes Using OSS Mailing Lists

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (09n10) ◽  
pp. 1633-1651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Ding ◽  
Peng Liang ◽  
Antony Tang ◽  
Hans van Vliet
Keyword(s):  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Functional Requirement ◽  
Quality Requirement ◽  
External Quality ◽  
Mailing Lists

The causes of architecture changes can tell about why architecture changes, and this knowledge can be captured to prevent architecture knowledge vaporization and architecture degeneration. But the causes are not always known, especially in open source software (OSS) development. This makes it very hard to understand the underlying reasons for the architecture changes and design appropriate modifications. Architecture information is communicated in development mailing lists of OSS projects. To explore the possibility of identifying and understanding the causes of architecture changes, we conducted an empirical study to analyze architecture information (i.e. architectural threads) communicated in the development mailing lists of two popular OSS projects: Hibernate and ArgoUML, verified architecture changes with source code, and identified the causes of architecture changes from the communicated architecture information. The main findings of this study are: (1) architecture information communicated in OSS mailing lists does lead to architecture changes in code; (2) the major cause for architecture changes in both Hibernate and ArgoUML is preventative changes, and the causes of architecture changes are further classified to functional requirement, external quality requirement, and internal quality requirement using the coding techniques of grounded theory; (3) more than 45% of architecture changes in both projects happened before the first stable version was released.

Women in the Free/Libre Open Source Software Development

2011 ◽  
pp. 1286-1291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuwei Lin
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Ict Skills ◽  
Ideal World ◽  
Mailing Lists ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Flow Of Information

Free/libre open source software (FLOSS) has become a prominent phenomenon in the ICT field and the wider public domain for the past years. However, according to a FLOSS survey on FLOSS developers in 2002, “women do not play a role in the [FLOSS] development; only 1.1% of the FLOSS sample is female.” (Ghosh, Glott, Krieger, & Robles, 2002). In the mainstream research on FLOSS communities, many researchers also overlook different processes of community-building and diverse experiences of members, and presume a stereotyped male-dominated “hacker community” (e.g., Levy, 1984; Raymond, 2001; Himanen, 2001; Thomas, 2002). Moreover, issues around gender inequality are often ignored and/or muted in the pile of FLOSS studies. Female programmers often are rejected ex/implicitly from the software labour market (Levesque & Wilson 2004). The requirements of female users are not respected and consulted either (European Commission, 2001). This feature is opposite to the FLOSS ideal world where users should be equally treated and embraced (op. cit.). While many researchers endeavour to understand the FLOSS development, few found a gender-biased situation problematic. In short, women are almost invisible in current FLOSS-related literature. Most policies targeting at advocating FLOSS are also gender blind. Thus, this essay highlights the need for increased action to address imbalances between women’s and men’s access to and participation in the FLOSS development in cultural (e.g., chauvinistic and/or gender-biased languages in discussions on mailing lists or in documentations), economic (e.g., unequal salary levels for women and men), political (e.g., male-dominated advocacy environment) and technical (e.g., unbalanced students gender in technical tutorials) spheres. On the other hand, it also emphasises the powerful potential of FLOSS as a vehicle for advancing gender equality in software expertise. FLOSS helps transport knowledge and experience of software engineering through distributing source code together with the binary code almost without any limit. Many FLOSS licences such as the General Public Licence (GPL) also facilitates the flow of information and knowledge. In other words, if appropriately harnessed, FLOSS stands to meaningfully contribute to and mutually reinforce the advancement of effective, more expedited solutions to bridging the gender digital divide. In the end, this article points out that while women in more advanced countries have a better chance of upgrading their ICT skills and knowledge through participating in the FLOSS development, the opportunity is less available for women in the developing world. It is worth noting that although the gender issues raised in this article are widespread, they should not be considered as universally indifferent. Regional specificities in gender agenda in software engineering should be addressed distinctly (UNDP/UNIFEM, 2004).

Impact of Clone Refactoring on External Quality Attributes of Open Source Softwares

2018 ◽  
pp. 86-94
Author(s):  
Himanshi Vashisht ◽  
Sanjay Bharadwaj ◽  
Sushma Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Internal Structure ◽  
Software Quality ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Quality Attributes ◽  
Software Component ◽  
External Quality ◽  
Code Refactoring ◽  
Observable Behaviour

Code refactoring is a “Process of restructuring an existing source code.”. It also helps in improving the internal structure of the code without really affecting its external behaviour”. It changes a source code in such a way that it does not alter the external behaviour yet still it improves its internal structure. It is a way to clean up code that minimizes the chances of introducing bugs. Refactoring is a change made to the internal structure of a software component to make it easier to understand and cheaper to modify, without changing the observable behaviour of that software component. Bad smells indicate that there is something wrong in the code that have to refactor. There are different tools that are available to identify and emove these bad smells. A software has two types of quality attributes- Internal and external. In this paper we will study the effect of clone refactoring on software quality attributes.

scholarly journals Internal Quality Evolution of Open-Source Software Systems

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 5690
Author(s):  
Mamdouh Alenezi
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Software Evolution ◽  
Quality Metrics ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Software Systems ◽  
Software Metric ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
The Relationship

The evolution of software is necessary for the success of software systems. Studying the evolution of software and understanding it is a vocal topic of study in software engineering. One of the primary concepts of software evolution is that the internal quality of a software system declines when it evolves. In this paper, the method of evolution of the internal quality of object-oriented open-source software systems has been examined by applying a software metric approach. More specifically, we analyze how software systems evolve over versions regarding size and the relationship between size and different internal quality metrics. The results and observations of this research include: (i) there is a significant difference between different systems concerning the LOC variable (ii) there is a significant correlation between all pairwise comparisons of internal quality metrics, and (iii) the effect of complexity and inheritance on the LOC was positive and significant, while the effect of Coupling and Cohesion was not significant.

scholarly journals Open Plot Project: an open-source toolkit for 3-D structural data analysis

Solid Earth ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Tavani ◽  
P. Arbues ◽  
M. Snidero ◽  
N. Carrera ◽  
J. A. Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Distribution ◽  
Data Analysis ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Structural Data ◽  
Geological Modelling ◽  
Analysis Tools ◽  
Transect Analysis ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract. In this work we present the Open Plot Project, an open-source software for structural data analysis, including a 3-D environment. The software includes many classical functionalities of structural data analysis tools, like stereoplot, contouring, tensorial regression, scatterplots, histograms and transect analysis. In addition, efficient filtering tools are present allowing the selection of data according to their attributes, including spatial distribution and orientation. This first alpha release represents a stand-alone toolkit for structural data analysis. The presence of a 3-D environment with digitalising tools allows the integration of structural data with information extracted from georeferenced images to produce structurally validated dip domains. This, coupled with many import/export facilities, allows easy incorporation of structural analyses in workflows for 3-D geological modelling. Accordingly, Open Plot Project also candidates as a structural add-on for 3-D geological modelling software. The software (for both Windows and Linux O.S.), the User Manual, a set of example movies (complementary to the User Manual), and the source code are provided as Supplement. We intend the publication of the source code to set the foundation for free, public software that, hopefully, the structural geologists' community will use, modify, and implement. The creation of additional public controls/tools is strongly encouraged.

Inside Commits: An Empirical Study on Commits in Open-Source Software

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mívian Ferreira ◽  
Diego Golçalves ◽  
Kecia Ferreira ◽  
Mariza Bigonha
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software

Review of Open Source Software (OSS)

2012 ◽  
pp. 26-40
Author(s):  
Bhasker Mukerji ◽  
Ramaraj Palanisamy
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Large Pool ◽  
Public Sector Organizations

The popularity of Open Source Software (OSS) in developing countries is quiet evident from its widespread adoption across government departments and public sector organizations. The use of OSS saves economic resources of cash starved countries, provides an opportunity to promote e-government, and to utilize their resources in other sectors. Many developing countries have a large pool of skilled developers who can modify the source code of the OSS at a very low cost. Many governments in developing and developed countries have switched to OSS which probably encourages others to follow the trend. It was not possible to follow the adoption trend in all the developing countries but the usage of OSS in countries like India, Brazil, and Venezuela provides us an insight. The successful adoption of OSS requires thorough analysis of its advantages as well as the issues associated with it. This chapter will provide an overview of OSS, characteristics of OSS developers, and their motivation to volunteer by contributing in OSS projects, followed by the advantages and issues associated with OSS.

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