Abstract
The assessment of development practices in Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects can contribute to the improvement of the development process by identifying poor practices and providing a list of necessary practices. Available assessment methods (e.g., Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI)) do not address sufficiently FLOSS-specific aspects (e.g., geographically distributed development, importance of the contributions, reputation of the project, etc.). We present a FLOSS-focused, CMMI-like assessment/improvement model: the QualiPSo Open Source Maturity Model (OMM). OMM focuses on the development process. This makes it different from existing assessment models that are focused on the assessment of the product. We have assessed six FLOSS projects using OMM. Three projects were started and led by a software company, and three are developed by three different FLOSS communities. We identified poorly addressed development activities as the number of commit/bug reports, the external contributions, and the risk management. The results showed that FLOSS projects led by companies adopt standard project management approaches as product planning, design definition, and testing, that are less often addressed by community led FLOSS projects. The OMM is valuable for both the FLOSS community, by identifying critical development activities necessary to be improved, and for potential users that can better decide which product to adopt.
Highlights
Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development approaches differ from the traditional software development approaches [1] such as the waterfall or the spiral
The final value for the Project documentation (PDOC) TrustWorthy Elements (TWEs) of the Mobile OS project is 2,11 which means that the aspects related to product documentation are averagely addressed by the project and improvements are possible
The final goal of the Open Source Maturity Model (OMM) is an improved quality of the FLOSS development process and the quality of the FLOSS products
Summary
Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development approaches differ from the traditional software development approaches [1] such as the waterfall or the spiral. Assessment models have been defined for evaluating the quality of the software development process. For successfully assessing the process, it is possible to use an assessment approach that addresses key aspects of the development process. For this reason, it is important to modify an assessment approach or use different approaches when assessing different types of software processes. One standardized approach to assess the quality of the software development process is the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMM/CMMI) [4]. It is both an assessment and an improvement model for software development. CMMI is increasingly being adopted by the software industry and the number of experts that are knowledgeable in its structure and usage is already large
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