Software Reuse in Open Source A Case Study

Author(s):  
Andrea Capiluppi ◽  
Klaas-Jan Stol ◽  
Cornelia Boldyreff

A promising way to support software reuse is based on Component-Based Software Development (CBSD). Open Source Software (OSS) products are increasingly available that can be freely used in product development. However, OSS communities still face several challenges before taking full advantage of the “reuse mechanism”: many OSS projects duplicate effort, for instance when many projects implement a similar system in the same application domain and in the same topic. One successful counter-example is the FFmpeg multimedia project; several of its components are widely and consistently reused in other OSS projects. Documented is the evolutionary history of the various libraries of components within the FFmpeg project, which presently are reused in more than 140 OSS projects. Most use them as black-box components; although a number of OSS projects keep a localized copy in their repositories, eventually modifying them as needed (white-box reuse). In both cases, the authors argue that FFmpeg is a successful project that provides an excellent exemplar of a reusable library of OSS components.

2014 ◽  
pp. 1900-1926
Author(s):  
Andrea Capiluppi ◽  
Klaas-Jan Stol ◽  
Cornelia Boldyreff

A promising way to support software reuse is based on Component-Based Software Development (CBSD). Open Source Software (OSS) products are increasingly available that can be freely used in product development. However, OSS communities still face several challenges before taking full advantage of the “reuse mechanism”: many OSS projects duplicate effort, for instance when many projects implement a similar system in the same application domain and in the same topic. One successful counter-example is the FFmpeg multimedia project; several of its components are widely and consistently reused in other OSS projects. Documented is the evolutionary history of the various libraries of components within the FFmpeg project, which presently are reused in more than 140 OSS projects. Most use them as black-box components; although a number of OSS projects keep a localized copy in their repositories, eventually modifying them as needed (white-box reuse). In both cases, the authors argue that FFmpeg is a successful project that provides an excellent exemplar of a reusable library of OSS components.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Capiluppi ◽  
Klaas-Jan Stol ◽  
Cornelia Boldyreff

A promising way to support software reuse is based on Component-Based Software Development (CBSD). Open Source Software (OSS) products are increasingly available that can be freely used in product development. However, OSS communities still face several challenges before taking full advantage of the “reuse mechanism”: many OSS projects duplicate effort, for instance when many projects implement a similar system in the same application domain and in the same topic. One successful counter-example is the FFmpeg multimedia project; several of its components are widely and consistently reused in other OSS projects. Documented is the evolutionary history of the various libraries of components within the FFmpeg project, which presently are reused in more than 140 OSS projects. Most use them as black-box components; although a number of OSS projects keep a localized copy in their repositories, eventually modifying them as needed (white-box reuse). In both cases, the authors argue that FFmpeg is a successful project that provides an excellent exemplar of a reusable library of OSS components.


2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Gaudeul

This paper traces the history of TEX, the open source typesetting program. TEX was an early and very successful open source project that imposed its standards in a particularly competitive environment and inspired many advances in the typesetting industry. Developed over three decades, TEX came into competition with a variety of open source and proprietary alternatives. I argue from this case study that open source developers derive direct and indirect network externalities from the use of their software by others and must therefore consider non-developers' needs to make their software more attractive to a broader audience and more competitive with proprietary alternatives.


Author(s):  
Inna Rytsareva ◽  
Qize Le ◽  
Emma Conner ◽  
Ananth Kalyanaraman ◽  
Jitesh H. Panchal

In complex product development, coordination is the act of managing dependencies between artifacts. Socio-technical coordination is the achievement of coordination through the alignment of organizational structures and product structures. Socio-technical coordination is achieved in hierarchical product development organizations by aligning the organizational structure with the system architecture. However, within virtual community-based product development such as open source development, the organizational structure is not designed by a central authority. In contrast, the community evolves as a result of participation of individuals and their communication with other individuals working on the project. Hence, understanding and quantifying socio-technical coordination is particularly important in open-source communities. Existing approaches to measuring socio-technical coordination are based on the congruence between ideal communication and the actual communication structures within communities. The primary limitation of existing approaches is that they only account for explicit communication between individuals. Existing measures do not account for the indirect communication between individuals and the shared knowledge that individuals working on a joint project possess. Due to these limitations, the socio-technical coordination values have been observed to be very low in the existing literature. We propose two alternate approaches to measuring socio-technical coordination based on clustering techniques. We illustrate the approaches using a case study from an open source software development community. The proposed approaches present a broader and more encompassing view of coordination within open source communities.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 560-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Leite ◽  
Vanessa Braz

Purpose – For decades multiple management philosophies directed toward lean production and mass were assumed as to respond to process inefficiencies and rampant consumerism, optimizing operation costs. However, new customization and flexible productions philosophies have been gaining ground in some industries, such as the agile manufacturing. From a literature review that addresses the history of this philosophy, it is clear that agile manufacturing is not fully comprehended, with very scarce information about practical cases. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper the authors describe an exploratory methodology approach, with three semi-structured case study interviews. The goal is to study which of agile manufacturing practices are being applied in the studied companies and what is the perceived effect that these have on operational performance. Since most of these companies develop highly customized products, the role of agility on new product development can have a huge impact on their operational performance. Findings – Agile manufacturing is not yet a widespread philosophy of managing for the companies studied, being virtually unknown as a global concept. However, it was found that many of the practices of agile manufacturing are already implemented in these companies without association with this philosophy. It was also concluded, by the finding through respondents opinions, that agile practices contribute positively to the studied companies operating performance. Originality/value – The novelty of this research derives from observation of agile manufacturing practices in SMEs. This research is useful to SMEs implementing agile manufacturing principles.


Author(s):  
Andrew W. Neal

This book argues that while ‘security’ was once an anti-political ‘exception’ in liberal democracies – a black box of secret intelligence and military decision-making at the dark heart of the state – it has now become normalised in professional political life. This represents a direct challenge to critical security studies and securitisation debates and their core assumption that security is a kind of illiberal and undemocratic ‘anti-politics’. The book investigates security from the perspective of professional political practice - historically, sociologically and theoretically. Using an extended UK case study, including interviews with parliamentarians and former security ministers, it examines security politics from the early 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. It explores the history of legislative/executive relations on security, including the reasons for parliamentary exclusion from security policy making such as executive secrecy and parliamentary deference. The book demonstrates that political activity on security has increased to such an extent that it requires a rethink of the assumed pathological relationship between ‘politics’ and ‘security’. Security has been migrating from the realm of exceptional politics to one of ‘normal politics’.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Aires Jorge Alberto Sandi ◽  
◽  
Giacaglia Giorgio Eugenio Oscare ◽  

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-54
Author(s):  
Irmala Sukendra ◽  
Agus Mulyana ◽  
Imam Sudarmaji

Regardless to the facts that English is being taught to Indonesian students starting from early age, many Indonesian thrive in learning English. They find it quite troublesome for some to acquire the language especially to the level of communicative competence. Although Krashen (1982:10) states that “language acquirers are not usually aware of the fact that they are acquiring language, but are only aware of the fact that they are using the language for communication”, second language acquisition has several obstacles for learners to face and yet the successfulness of mastering the language never surmounts to the one of the native speakers. Learners have never been able to acquire the language as any native speakers do. Mistakes are made and inter-language is unavoidable. McNeili in Ellis (1985, p. 44) mentions that “the mentalist views of L1 acquisition hypothesizes the process of acquisition consists of hypothesis-testing, by which means the grammar of the learner’s mother tongue is related to the principles of the ‘universal grammar’.” Thus this study intends to find out whether the students go through the phase of interlanguage in their attempt to acquire second language and whether their interlanguage forms similar system as postulated by linguists (Krashen).


Author(s):  
Odile Moreau

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.


2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.


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