Open Source Software Development Practices Research Articles

Malicious source code detection using a translation model

Modern software development often relies on open-source code sharing. Open-source code reuse, however, allows hackers to access wide developer communities, thereby potentially affecting many products. An increasing number of such "supply chain attacks" have occurred in recent years, taking advantage of open-source software development practices. Here, we introduce the Malicious Source code Detection using a Translation model (MSDT) algorithm. MSDT is a novel deep-learning-based analysis method that detects real-world code injections into source code packages. We have tested MSDT by embedding examples from a dataset of over 600,000 different functions and then applying a clustering algorithm to the resulting embedding vectors to identify malicious functions by detecting outliers. We evaluated MSDT's performance with extensive experiments and demonstrated that MSDT could detect malicious code injections with precision@k values of up to 0.909.

Inner Source Definition, Benefits, and Challenges

Inner Source (IS) is the use of open source software development practices and the establishment of an open source-like culture within organizations. The organization may still develop proprietary software but internally opens up its development. A steady stream of scientific literature and practitioner reports indicates the interest in this research area. However, the research area lacks a systematic assessment of known research work: No model exists that defines IS thoroughly. Various case studies provide insights into IS programs in the context of specific organizations but only few publications apply a broader perspective. To resolve this, we performed an extensive literature survey and analyzed 43 IS related publications plus additional background literature. Using qualitative data analysis methods, we developed a model of the elements that constitute IS. We present a classification framework for IS programs and projects and apply it to lay out a map of known IS endeavors. Further, we present qualitative models summarizing the benefits and challenges of IS adoption. The survey provides the first broad review of IS literature and systematic arrangement of IS research results.

A comparative study of challenges in integrating Open Source Software and Inner Source Software

Context Several large software-developing organizations have adopted Open Source Software development (OSSD) practices to develop in-house components that are subsequently integrated into products. This phenomenon is also known as “Inner Source”. While there have been several reports of successful cases of this phenomenon, little is known about the challenges that practitioners face when integrating software that is developed in such a setting. Objective The objective of this study was to shed light on challenges related to building products with components that have been developed within an Inner Source development environment. Method Following an initial systematic literature review to generate seed category data constructs, we performed an in-depth exploratory case study in an organization that has a significant track record in the implementation of Inner Source. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with participants from a range of divisions across the organization. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative data analysis techniques. Results We have identified a number of challenges and approaches to address them, and compared the findings to challenges related to development with OSS products reported in the literature. We found that many challenges identified in the case study could be mapped to challenges related to integration of OSS. Conclusion The results provide important insights into common challenges of developing with OSS and Inner Source and may help organizations to understand how to improve their software development practices by adopting certain OSSD practices. The findings also identify the areas that need further research.

Open Collaboration within Corporations Using Software Forges

This article describes our experiences using open source software development practices at SAP. SAP is a major software developer and leader in business applications. We've found that open source practices can complement traditional top-down software development with bottom-up collective intelligence. Software forges offer a mechanism for advancing the adoption of open source best practices within corporations. We illustrate our experiences using SAP's own internal software forge, called SAP Forge, and compare our experiences with those from other large software companies.

Exploring the Effects of Process Characteristics on Products Quality in Open Source Software Development

There has been considerable discussion on the possible impacts of open source software development practices, especially in regard to the quality of the resulting software product. Recent studies have shown that analyzing data from source code repositories is an efficient way to gather information about project characteristics and programmers, showing that OSS projects are very heterogeneous in their team structures and software processes. However, one problem is that the resulting process metrics measuring attributes of the development process and of the development environment do not give any hints about the quality, complexity, or structure of the resulting software. Therefore, we expanded the analysis by calculating several product metrics, most of them specifically tailored to object-oriented software. We then analyzed the relationship between these product metrics and process metrics derived from a CVS repository. The aim was to establish whether different variants of open source development processes have a significant impact on the resulting software products. In particular we analyzed the impact on quality and design associated with the numbers of contributors and the amount of their work, using the GINI coefficient as a measure of inequality within the developer group.

Free and open source development practices in the game community

The free and open source software (FOSS) approach lets community of like-minded participants develop software systems and related artifacts that are shared freely instead of offered as closed-source commercial products. Free (as in freedom) software and open source are closely related but slightly different approaches and licensing schemes for developing publicly shared software. FOSS development communities don't seem to adopt modern software engineering processes. FOSS communities develop software that's extremely valuable, generally reliable, globally distributed, made available for acquisition at little or no cost, and readily used in its community. Free and open source software development practices gives rise to new view of how complex software systems can be constructed, deployed, and evolved. They rely on lean electronic communication media, virtual project management, and version management mechanisms to coordinate globally dispersed development efforts. These FOSS processes offer new directions for developing complex software systems. We look at the FOSS computer game community to provide examples of common development processes and practices.