Evaluating Open Source Software through Prototyping

Author(s):  
Ralf Carbon ◽  
Marcus Ciolkowski

The increasing number of high quality open source software (OSS) components lets industrial organizations seriously consider integrating them into their software solutions for critical business cases. But thorough considerations have to be undertaken to choose the “right” OSS component for a specific business case. OSS components need to fulfill specific functional and non-functional requirements, must fit into a planned architecture, and must comply with context factors in a specific environment. This chapter introduces a prototyping approach to evaluate OSS components. The prototyping approach provides decision makers with context-specific evaluation results and a prototype for demonstration purposes. The approach can be used by industrial organizations to decide on the feasibility of OSS components in their concrete business cases. We present one of the industrial case studies we conducted in a practical course at the University of Kaiserslautern to demonstrate the application of our approach in practice. This case study shows that even inexperienced developers like students can produce valuable evaluation results for an industrial customer that wants to use open source components.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-515
Author(s):  
Vanessa R. Levesque ◽  
Cameron P. Wake

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how the process of creating and implementing sustainability competencies across a university illuminate dynamics of organizational change. The push to advance education for sustainable development in higher education will likely require transformation of existing policies and practices. A set of shared sustainability competencies could guide the integration of sustainability throughout an institution. Design/methodology/approach This paper reports on a case study of one US university, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) that developed institutional-level sustainability competencies. The process used to create and implement sustainability competencies is outlined, and key factors that influenced the associated organizational change are identified. Findings Very few US universities have institutional-level sustainability competencies. At UNH, drivers of organizational change such as overcoming disciplinary boundaries, developing a common vision and working from the bottom-up enabled the creation of institutional sustainability competencies, but the same processes were not enough to drive deeper implementation of the competencies. Originality/value This paper not only identifies the context-specific drivers of the development of institutional sustainability competencies, but also identifies universal themes that can be applied to other institutions embarking on a similar process. Additionally, this paper serves as a foundation for future research exploring how the process of creating institutional sustainability competencies may be linked to how effective they are in shaping subsequent sustainability education.


2017 ◽  
Vol 134 ◽  
pp. 211-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-Eleni Paschali ◽  
Apostolos Ampatzoglou ◽  
Stamatia Bibi ◽  
Alexander Chatzigeorgiou ◽  
Ioannis Stamelos

Author(s):  
Athanasios-Ilias Rousinopoulos ◽  
Gregorio Robles ◽  
Jesús M. González-Barahona

O desenvolvimento de software é uma atividade intensive em esforço humano. Assim, a forma como os desenvolvedores encaram suas tarefas é de suam importância. Em um ambiente como o usual em projetos de FOSS (free/open source software) em que profissionais (desenvolvedores pagos) compartilham os esforços de desenvolvimento com voluntários, a moral da comunidade de desenvolvedores e usuários é fundamental. Neste artigo, apresentamos uma análise preliminary utilizando técnicas de análise de sentimentos realizada em um projeto de FOSS. Para isso, executamos a mineração da lista de endereços eletrônicos de um projeto e aplicamos as técnicas propostas aos participantes mais relevantes. Embora a aplicação seja limitada, no momento atual, experamos que essa experiência possa ser benéfica no future para determiner situações que possam afetar os desenvolvedores ou o projeto, tais como baixa produtividade, abandono do projeto ou bifurcação do projeto, entre outras.


Author(s):  
Peter Flynn

In 2006 my university academic IT support group was approached by an academic colleague wanting to start a new journal, which would be available in electronic form only. There were restrictions imposed by the technical capabilities of the pool of authors, the requirements of the discipline, and — unsurprisingly — the lack of financial resources. The decision was made to implement a system using only open source software, and building largely from scratch, as the existing open source journal publishing systems at the time, although comprehensive and well-established, were seen as far too large and complex for the task. This paper is a case study describing the process and explaining the background to the decisions made. It attempts to draw some conclusions about the technical viability of creating a small-scale publishing system which attempted to retain XML throughout the workflow, and about the human factors which influenced the decisions.


Author(s):  
Osden Jokonya ◽  
Stan Hardman

This paper investigates the contribution of stakeholder collaboration during an open source software migration using a case study. The case study is based on the Presidential National Commission, a South African government department that migrated from proprietary software to open source software in 2007. The organization was one of the few that migrated to open source software as part of a South African government initiative. The case study consisted of semi-structured interviews with the participants involved in the migration. The interviews centered on the contribution of stakeholder collaboration during the software migration using a boundary critique. The results suggest that stakeholder collaboration can contribute to open source software migration. From a managerial perspective, business leaders must understand the value of stakeholder collaboration in open source software migration. Boundary critique can be an important tool for achieving broader collaboration of stakeholders.


2010 ◽  
pp. 1571-1589
Author(s):  
Ashley Davis

Open source software is becoming more prevalent in businesses today, and while still a relatively immature offering, open source enterprise resource planning (OS-ERP) systems are becoming more common. However, whether or not an OS-ERP package is the right software for a given organization is a little researched question. Building on the current real options thinking about platform acquisitions, this chapter proposes the five most critical factors to consider when evaluating an OS-ERP package. To adequately do this, a great deal of detail about the current offerings in OS-ERP software is presented, followed by a review of the real options theory and thinking behind using these factors to evaluate OS-ERP options. The international implications of OS-ERP are presented in the “Future Trends” section.


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