Free and Open Source Source Software (FOSS): An In-Depth Look
Christof Ebert, Vector
Total pages: 38
$29.00
Introduction
Depending on the product, its usage, and the market constraints, free and open source software (FOSS) has several advantages. With a substantial user community, many FOSS components and tools have evolved to de facto standards. This makes FOSS a lasting solution that can resist the commercial supplier uncertainties that can often abruptly end a product's life. Developing with mainstream FOSS reduces cycle time for component updates and corrections.
More, and often free, labor is available to localize and correct defects. Especially for embedded systems, FOSS provides fast new drivers and hardware-related features. Developing an application on a proven de facto standard and binary compatibility protects the application against changing supplier conditions. Several studies look to FOSS quality and conclude that FOSS improves security. Some fear that security is at greater risk because the source code is available, but many more people review the source code of broadly used FOSS than that of proprietary software. For that very reason, security breaches are typically fixed quickly and with broad notification to the user community. Students use FOSS in school, which substantially shortens their learning curve when they go to work for software companies. Engineers often have the same FOSS tools at home, which positively impacts the work climate and productivity.
FOSS quality is claimed to be extremely high due to the "many pairs of eyes" looking to it. In "Achieving Quality in Open Source Software," Mark Aberdour provides empirical insight into OSS quality. James W. Paulson and colleagues underline in "An Empirical Study of Open-Source and Closed-Source Software Products" that often OSS starts and evolves organically. They compare development projects based on open source and in closed environments. With "Evaluating Software Engineering Processes in Commercial and Community Open Source Projects," Anthony I. Wasserman and his colleagues look into different engineering processes as they're used in developing open source and community source software. With so many advantages, FOSS projects also have a dark side because, simply speaking, a vast majority of them fail.
Evangelos Katsamakas and colleagues highlight reasons and success factors for FOSS projects in "Why Most Open Source Development Projects Do Not Succeed." Thus, most OSS communities are not real communities and not worth engaging in a development. Building on such experiences, Kevin Crowston provides a checklist for before you start actively contributing to FOSS in "Assessing the Health of Open Source Communities." These advanced articles on FOSS look into current hot topics and related research and how they're practically handled in industrial but also research settings. They&$39;ll stimulate your own search for best practices in open or community driven development of your software systems, and will help you find ways to actively contribute to FOSS.
Keywords: free and open source software, FOSS, open source development
Table of Contents
Achieving Quality in Open Source Software
Mark Aberdour
Summary: The open source community has published substantial research on OSS quality. Focusing on this peer-reviewed body of work lets us draw conclusions from empirical data rather than rely on the substantial evangelical opinion that has historically dominated this field.
An Empirical Study of Open-Source and Closed-Source Software Products
James W. Paulson, Giancarlo Succi, and Armin Eberlein
Summary: The authors describe an empirical study of open-source and closed-source software projects they conducted to quantitatively investigate and validate common perceptions about open-source projects.
Evaluating Software Engineering Processes in Commercial and Community Open Source Projects
Anthony I. Wasserman and Eugenio Capra
Summary: The authors surveyed leaders of more than 75 open source projects, focusing their questions on leadership and communication styles, with a technical focus on testing and quality assurance processes.
Why Most Open Source Development Projects Do Not Succeed?
Evangelos Katsamakas and Nicholas Georgantzas
Summary: Evidence suggests that only a small percentage of open source development (OSSD)
projects are active, have significant participation, or have delivered operational software. The authors' simulation model analyzes the dynamics of open source project participation process and software development process.
Assessing the Health of Open Source Communities
Kevin Crowston and James Howison
Summary: Before contributing to a free or open source software project, participants need to understand the developers, leaders, and active users behind it.
