Software Development Perspective Research Articles

Beyond free software: An exploration of the business value of strategic open source

The phenomenon of open source software (OSS) has been well studied from the software development perspective, but it has received much less attention from the perspective of business value. Nevertheless, OSS, when viewed as a value creation process rather than ‘free’ software, provides businesses with value through access to knowledge and innovation capacity resident in online communities. This conceptualisation, which we label ‘strategic open source’ requires firms to rethink their strategy and processes as there is a shift in focus from ownership to openness and collaboration with external parties. Nonetheless, the emergence of OSS poses a puzzle for conceptions of organisational theory. Therefore, a theorising process is needed in order to develop a deeper understanding of how value is created and captured with OSS. Using a field study of eleven European firms, this paper explores the creation and capture of business value from strategic open source. The findings reveal that while decision makers look to open innovation initiatives like OSS for value creation and capture, there is still a desire to remain self reliant, resulting in collaborative design (of external innovations) rather than collaborative decision making with value network partners in relation to how such innovations would help create and capture value within firms.

WebTPS: A Complete Web Application for Monte Carlo Treatment Plan Recalculation

To make Monte Carlo (MC) plan recalculation more accessible by developing a complete web application (WebTPS) for recalculating radiation therapy plans along with providing export/import and visualization tools for further analysis of dose distributions. From a software development perspective, the aim is to create a user-friendly platform which individual users can access without installing any additional software on their computers.

An open-source approach to music education through jam2jam XO

This article examines the philosophy and practice of open-source technology in the development of the jam2jam XO software for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) computer. It explores how open-source software principles, pragmatist philosophy, improvisation and constructionist epistemologies are operationalized in the design and development of music software, and how such reflection reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of the open-source software development paradigm. An overview of the jam2jam XO platform, its development processes and music educational uses is provided and resulting reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of open-source development for music education are discussed. From an educational and software development perspective, the act of creating open-source software is shown to be a valuable enterprise, however, just because the source code, creative content and experience design are accessible and ‘open’ to be changed, does not guarantee that educational practices in the use of that software will change. Research around the development and use of jam2jam XO suggests that open-source software development principles can have an impact beyond software development and on to aspects of experience design and learning relationships.

On-chip memory architecture exploration framework for DSP processor-based embedded system on chip

Today's SoCs are complex designs with multiple embedded processors, memory subsystems, and application specific peripherals. The memory architecture of embedded SoCs strongly influences the power and performance of the entire system. Further, the memory subsystem constitutes a major part (typically up to 70%) of the silicon area for the current day SoC. In this article, we address the on-chip memory architecture exploration for DSP processors which are organized as multiple memory banks, where banks can be single/dual ported with non-uniform bank sizes. In this paper we propose two different methods for physical memory architecture exploration and identify the strengths and applicability of these methods in a systematic way. Both methods address the memory architecture exploration for a given target application by considering the application's data access characteristics and generates a set of Pareto-optimal design points that are interesting from a power, performance and VLSI area perspective. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive work on memory space exploration at physical memory level that integrates data layout and memory exploration to address the system objectives from both hardware design and application software development perspective. Further we propose an automatic framework that explores the design space identifying 100's of Pareto-optimal design points within a few hours of running on a standard desktop configuration.

The changing industry structure of software development for consumer electronics and its consequences for software architectures

During the last decade the structure of the consumer electronics industry has been changing profoundly. Current consumer electronics products are built using components from a large variety of specialized firms, whereas previously each product was developed by a single, vertically integrated company. Taking a software development perspective, we analyze the transition in the consumer electronics industry using case studies from digital televisions and mobile phones. We introduce a model consisting of five industry structure types and describe the forces that govern the transition between types and we describe the consequences for software architectures. We conclude that, at this point in time, software supply chains are the dominant industry structure for developing consumer electronics products. This is because the modularization of the architecture is limited, due to the lack of industry-wide standards and because resource constrained devices require variants of supplied software that are optimized for different hardware configurations. Due to these characteristics open ecosystems have not been widely adopted. The model and forces can serve the decision making process for individual companies that consider the transition to a different type of industry structure as well as provide a framework for researchers studying the software-intensive industries.

An exploratory study of software process improvement implementation risks

SUMMARYSoftware process improvement (SPI) initiatives have been around for many years, yet many companies are still facing SPI implementation problems. The objective of this exploratory research is to gain an in‐depth understanding of risks that can undermine SPI implementation from the perspective of software development practitioners.Interviews were conducted as the main approach of data collection from 34 SPI practitioners. Interviews were recorded and subsequently transcribed. The interview transcripts were systematically scrutinised to identify the major themes for SPI implementation. The identified themes were noted down and compared with the notes made during the interviews to ascertain that the former are indeed a true reflection of the discussion in the interviews. This two‐step process also verified that the transcription process had not changed the original data generated in the interviews.Five SPI risks were identified from the interview data: organisational politics, lack of support, lack of defined SPI implementation methodology, lack of awareness and lack of resources that are generally considered critical by Australian practitioners. The results also reveal the similarities and the differences in the risks identified by different group of practitioners (i.e. developers, managers and senior managers), different type of organisations (i.e. small–medium and large) and organisations with mature and immature software development processes. Practitioners identify SPI risks based on previous SPI implementation experience. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE SOFTWARE MARKET: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR BRAZILIAN COMPANIES

This paper deals with the potential for internationalization of the Brazilian software industry from the perspective of software developers and service providers. The purpose of the study conducted was to better understand the way Brazilian software companies relate to the international software market by comparing the perceptions of entrepreneurs and those of government agency officials responsible for increasing Brazil's participation in the international software market. Data collection took place by means of semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs and government agency officials. The data gathered was subjected to content analysis. Results show that Brazilian software companies perform poorly with regard to levels of exporting their products and services for a number of reasons, among which the most outstanding is that they still think that the internal market offers enough challenges and opportunities.

Quality specification and metrication, results from a case-study in a mission-critical software domain

Software quality is of increasing importance in mission-critical embedded software systems. Due to the fast growing complexity and accompanying risks of failures of these systems, software quality needs to be addressed explicitly by software developers, preferably with a systematic method for an optimal implementation of software qualities, such as reliability, time-behavior and usability. At the Centre of Automation of Mission-critical Systems (CAMS) of the Dutch Royal Navy, a new approach has been defined for software developers to improve the way that they deal with software quality in the process of mission-critical systems engineering. The stepwise approach is based on both an international quality standard for software product quality, i.e. ISO9126, and on Multi-Criteria Decision Making techniques, i.e. analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The stepwise approach has been validated in a case study. In particular, the tailoring of the ISO9126 standard toward the specific CAMS development situation, and the applicability of AHP techniques, from the perspective of software developers, has been investigated. The case study is carried out in a representative software development project, i.e. the software for combat management systems (CMS) of warships. Results of the case study show that software developers can explicitly deal with quality on the basis of both the ISO9126 standard and the AHP techniques, respectively regarding the specification, prioritization and metrication of software product quality.

이기종 시스템에서 다층 구조를 통한 DBMS 대용량 데이터 로딩의 분석 및 평가

여러 과정을 통해 만들어진 수많은 데이터는 효율적으로 관리되기 위해서 DBMS의 도움이 절대적으로 필요하다. 네트워크 내부 또는 외부에서 오는 이러한 데이터는 실시간 또는 일괄적으로 데이터베이스에 삽입(insertion)이 된다. 다량의 데이터 삽입은 흔히 개별적인 DBMS에서 지원하는 특정 대용량 로딩 또는 삽입기능을 통해 수행된다. 본 논문에서는 다층 구조로 구성되어 있는 이기종 시스템의 대용량 데이터 로딩을 분석하고 평가하며 프로그램 삽입에서의 DBMS 대용량 로더의 결과와 비교한다. 또한 대용량 로딩의 성능을 쉽게 향상 시킬 수 있는 staging 데이터베이스를 사용한 하이브리드 방법을 제안한다. Managing the growing number of data generated through various processes requires the aid of Database Management System (DBMS) to efficiently handle the huge amount of data. These data can be inserted into database m real time or in batch, that come from multiple sources, including those that are coming from inside and outside of a network. The insertion of large amount of data is commonly done through specific bulk loading or insertion function supplied by each individual DBMS. In this paper, we analyze and evaluate on handling data bulk loading for heterogeneous systems that is organised as multi-tiered architecture and compare the result of DBMS bulk loader against program insertion from a software development perspective. We propose a hybrid solution using staging database that can be easily deployed for enhancing bulk loading performance compared to insertion by application.

Concepts of product software

Both the impact of software on life and our dependence on software is rapidly increasing. Using product software is an everyday phenomenon and product software is a major worldwide industry. Yet, there are very few scientific studies reported on the engineering of product software specifically. In this paper, we discuss specifics of the software business, the various terms used for product software and provide our definition of product software. Moreover, we explain difference between product software and tailor-made software from a software development perspective and provide a new framework for the categorization of product software. This paper points out the urgent need for more research on product software and the directions.

Resistance as Motivation for Innovation: Open Source Software

Resistance is frequently viewed as a negative aspect of human interaction. Although resistance manifests itself in numerous ways, resistance to change is frequent when individuals are introduced to new ideas or innovations. This form of resistance can limit forward progress of either an individual or an organization. However, a few papers investigated possible positive roles of resistance in human life. This paper proposes that resistance can be a positive motivator to achieve change. Open source software (OSS) is a technological innovation that is laden with aspects of resistance. One of the initial motivations for the development of open source software was “psychological reactance” on the part of a few software developers. Reactance is a limited part of the overall construct of resistance; specifically, it refers to resistance is caused by external threats to an individual’s freedom of choice, which generally manifests itself affectively. This paper looks at the role of resistance as a motivator for technological innovation from the perspective of open source software development. It also presents techniques for overcoming resistance to the adoption of open source software. Specific techniques presented are the Alpha and Omega strategies for overcoming resistance. Alpha strategies work by attempting to increase the approach forces towards some goal. Conversely, Omega strategies attempt to decrease the avoidance forces, thereby removing resistance to change. Both techniques are used in the context of open sourced software development to motivate participants.

Zapotec: A Coupled Methodology For Modeling Penetration Problems

Tightly coupled methods are well suited for modeling penetration problems, where the materials involved have vastly differing response. Here we describe the development of Zapotec, a coupled Euler-Lagrange computer code, and its application to earth and ballistic penetration problems. In particular, we will focus on code coupling issues encountered for these applications as well as other software development issues. l Introduction Penetration problems are dynamic in nature, with the physical phenomena characterized by transient wave propagation, large material deformations, and multi-body contact. The coupled nature of the physical problem poses a significant challenge for numerical modeling, especially when the material strength differs significantly in the penetrator and target media. In this paper, we describe the development of Zapotec [1,2], a coupled Euler-Lagrange computer program used for modeling penetration applications. In particular, we will focus on code coupling issues associated with modeling penetrator and target interactions. In this paper, we first describe the Zapotec methodology. Then we describe its application to two examples involving earth and ballistic penetration. These examples illustrate modeling issues that can arise in the application of a coupled code methodology. Following this, we will discuss the code coupling issues from a software development perspective.

Cooperative Systems Design

This paper discusses an innovative experiment where sociologists were actively involved in the requirements analysis for an interactive software system to support the work of air traffic controllers. Air traffic control is intrinsically cooperative and our work involved an analysis of that process from a social perspective and the development of a prototype user interface for air traffic controllers’ interaction with a flight information system. As part of the analysis process, sociologists were involved in ethnographic studies of work and discovered subtle and complex patterns of cooperation which, we suspect, would not have been discovered using structured methods for requirements analysis. From a software development perspective, we describe how the input from the sociologists was essential for understanding the real automation requirements, discuss the difficulties of inter-disciplinary cooperative working and suggest how social analysis can be integrated in the interactive systems design process.