Considerations and challenges for the adoption of open source components in software-intensive businesses

• Component-Based Software Development is a conventional way of working for software-intensive businesses and OpenSource Software (OSS) components are frequently considered by businesses for adoption and inclusion in softwareproducts. Previous research has found a variety of practices used to support the adoption of OSS components, in-cluding formally specified processes and less formal, developer-led approaches, and that the practices used continue todevelop. Evolutionary pressures identified include the proliferation of available OSS components and increases in thepace of software development as businesses move towards continuous integration and delivery. We investigate workpractices used in six software-intensive businesses in the primary and secondary software sectors to understand currentapproaches to OSS component adoption and the challenges businesses face establishing effective work practices to eval-uate OSS components. We find businesses have established processes for evaluating OSS components and communitiesthat support more complex and nuanced considerations of the cost and risks of component adoption alongside matterssuch as licence compliance and functional requirements. We also found that the increasing pace and volume of softwaredevelopment within some businesses provides pressure to continue to evolve software evaluation processes.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Datorsystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Computer Systems (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Component-based software development

software adoption

open source software

INF304 Öppna data/Öppna system

INF304 Open Source

Software Systems Research Group (SSRG)

Software Systems Research Group (SSRG)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)