Understanding the Social, Technological, and Public Policy Implications of Open Source Soft.pdf

1Understanding the Social, Technological, and Public Policy Implications of Open Source Software Development Position paper Walt Scacchi (wscacchi@), Institute for Software Research, University of California, Irvine. August 2002 Interest in open source software has emerged in many different communities. Much of this interest has focused attention primarily onto the products of open software development (source code), and secondarily onto the processes and productive units that facilitate such development. My research is focused to understanding the processes, practices, and communities that give rise to open source software. My research group is studying (a) the role of software informalisms (vs. formalisms and standards found in software engineering), (b) the emergence and articulation of open software requirements, (c) the forms and constituencies of the social worlds of open software, and (d) other processes and practices across multiple open software development communities [Scacchi 2001b, 2002a,b,c]. I am prepared to discuss our results, work in progress, and the need for further research on all of these topics. However, the remainder of this position paper identifies what I believe are areas, topics, or basic questions requiring further research in the arena of open source software development and how it may impinge on government policies. These follow in an unordered manner. Understanding the quality of open source software from a socio-technical perspective What is the best, most effective way to determine the quality of open source software products and development processes? Open source software is developed in a highly social online environment where developers are frequently dispersed in space and time, but may rarely if ever meet for face-to-face interaction. If so, how is the distributed asynchronous collaboration among developers brought into being and sustained over time? Does this mode of computer-supported collaborative work increase, decrease,