Walt Scacchi

The Web of Computing: Computer Technology as Social Organization

Publisher Summary This chapter examines web models for understanding the dynamics of computing development and its use in organizational life. The chapter describes the study of the relative explanatory power of the discrete-entity model and web model by drawing upon the existing research literature and three case studies. The chapter explores different kinds of insights each model provides into the social dynamics of computing development and use. The chapter also illustrates the ways by which each model provides analytical power for making evaluations and predictions. Five major propositions that web analysts essentially make about the dynamics of computing development and use are also presented. The chapter concludes by examining two additional cases of computer developmentand use. It is noted that web models allow better predictions of the outcomes of using socially-complex computing developments in contrast to the discrete-entity models. Web analysts examine the interaction between people and technologies as part of a larger social and technical mosaic, in which the development and use of the focal technology is embedded.

Understanding the requirements for developing open source software systems

Presents an initial set of findings from an empirical study of social processes, technical system configurations, organisational contexts and interrelationships that give rise to open software. The focus is directed at understanding the requirements for open software development efforts, and how the development of these requirements differs from those traditional to software engineering and requirements engineering. Four open software development communities are described, examined and compared to help discover what these differences may be. Eight kinds of software informalisms are found to play a critical role in the elicitation, analysis, specification, validation and management of requirements for developing open software systems. Subsequently, understanding the roles these software informalisms take in a new formulation of the requirements development process for open source software is the focus of the study. This focus enables the consideration of a reformulation of the requirements engineering process and its associated artefacts, or (in)formalisms, to better account for the requirements for developing open source software systems.

Extracting and restructuring the design of large systems

Extraction of the structural and, to a lesser degree, functional and dynamic properties of systems composed of modules and subsystems is treated. The process is equivalent to reverse engineering a system-level design description. The approach used is to map the resource exchange among modules and then derive a hierarchical design description using a system-restructuring algorithm. The medium for the design description is a module interconnection language, NuMIL. The performance of the algorithm shows that it is practical.<<ETX>>

Role Migration and Advancement Processes in OSSD Projects: A Comparative Case Study

Socio-technical processes have come to the forefront of recent analysis of the open source software development (OSSD) world. Interest in making these processes explicit is mounting, from industry and the software process community, as well as among those who may become contributors to OSSD organization. This paper serves to close this gap by providing an empirical analysis of the role migration and project career advancement process, and role-sets within, that we have observed through comparative case studies within three large OSSD project organizations: Mozilla.org, Apache.org, and NetBeans.org.

A knowledge-based environment for modeling and simulating software engineering processes

The design and representation schemes used in constructing a prototype computational environment for modeling and simulating multiagent software engineering processes are described. This environment is called the articulator. An overview of the articulators architecture identifying five principal components is provided. Three of the components, the knowledge metamodel, the software process behavior simulator, and a knowledge base querying mechanism, are detailed and examples are included. The conclusion reiterates what is unique to this approach in applying knowledge engineering techniques to the problems of understanding the statics and dynamics of complex software engineering processes. >

A hypertext system to manage software life-cycle documents

The Documents Integration Facility, an environment based on objects and relationships between objects that was constructed for the development, use, and maintenance of large-scale systems and their life-cycle documents, is presented. DIF helps integrate and manage the documents produced and used throughout the life cycle: requirements specifications, functional specifications, architectural designs (structural specifications), detailed designs, source code, testing information, and user and maintenance manuals. DIF supports information management in large systems where there is much natural-language text. The documentation method used by DIF and DIFs structure are described. How DIF is used is discussed, and the DIF environment is examined. Issues that were encountered in the design of DIF are considered.<<ETX>>

Computing as Social Action: The Social Dynamics of Computing in Complex Organizations

Publisher Summary This chapter examines the ways in that the behavior of people and groups in organizations influences the development, use, and consequences of computing. The chapter presents an examination of the usefulness of different social perspectives for explaining how computing developments work in complex organizations. The chapter also presents that the six perspectives are best introduced by indicating how they help explain a complex case of computer use. The six theoretical perspectives help to understand the assumptions behind the questions asked and the answers different analysts have found. The rational perspective dominates the majority of analyses of computing, particularly those that are written by practitioners and found in trade journals or the internal documents of organizations. The development, use, and impact of computing in organizations are examined in light of the six perspectives outlined. The chapter examines the development and provision of computer services through the life cycle from initiation to evaluation. The knowledge about computing is distributed throughout organizations, and this leads to systematic misperceptions of computer use and increases the likelihood of computing errors. The chapter examines the consequences of computer use for the ways decisions are made, the work lives of computer users, and the distributions of power in computer-using organizations.

Free/Open Source Software Development: Recent Research Results and Methods

Abstract The focus of this chapter is to review what is known about free and open source software development (FOSSD) work practices, development processes, project and community dynamics, and other socio-technical relationships. It does not focus on specific properties or technical attributes of different FOSS systems, but it does seek to explore how FOSS is developed and evolved. The chapter provides a brief background on what FOSS is and how free software and open source software development efforts are similar and different. From there attention shifts to an extensive review of a set of empirical studies of FOSSD that articulate different levels of analysis. These characterize what has been analyzed in FOSSD studies across levels that examine why individuals participate; resources and capabilities supporting development activities; how cooperation, coordination, and control are realized in projects; alliance formation and inter-project social networking; FOSS as a multi-project software ecosystem, and FOSS as a social movement. Following this, the chapter reviews how different research methods are employed to examine different issues in FOSSD. These include reflective practice and industry polls, survey research, ethnographic studies, mining FOSS repositories, and multi-modal modeling and analysis of FOSSD processes and socio-technical networks. Finally, there is a discussion of limitations and constraints in the FOSSD studies so far, attention to emerging opportunities for future FOSSD studies, and then conclusions about what is known about FOSSD through the empirical studies reviewed here.

Mobilization of software developers: the free software movement

Purpose – The paper has three purposes: the first is to provide a deeper understanding of the ideology and work practices of free and open source software development, the second to characterize the free software movement as a new type of computerization movement and the third to present a conceptual diagram and framework with an analysis showing how the free software computerization movement has evolved into an occupational community.Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative data were collected over a four year period using a virtual ethnography in a study of free and open source software development and, in particular, a study of a free software community, GNUenterprise, located at www.gnuenterprise.org, which has the goal of developing a free enterprise resource planning software system.Findings – It is concluded that the ideology of the free software movement continues to be one of the factors which mobilize people to contribute to free and open source software development. This movement represents a ...

Managing Software Engineering Projects: A Social Analysis

Managing software engineering projects requires an ability to comprehend and balance the technological, economic, and social bases through which large software systems are developed. It requires people who can formulate strategies for developing systems in the presence of ill-defined requirements, new computing technologies, and recurring dilemmas with existing computing arrangements. This necessarily assumes skill in acquiring adequate computing resources, controlling projects, coordinating development schedules, and employing and directing competent staff. It also requires people who can organize the process for developing and evolving software products with locally available resources. Managing software engineering projects is as much a job of social interaction as it is one of technical direction. This paper examines the social arrangements that a software manager must deal with in developing and using new computing systems, evaluating the appropriateness of software engineering tools or techniques, directing the evolution of a system through its life cycle, organizing and staffing software engineering projects, and assessing the distributed costs and benefits of local software engineering practices. Ths purpose is to underscore the role of social analysis of software engineering practices as a cornerstone in understanding what it takes to productively manage software projects.