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Collaborative Resolution of Requirements Mismatches When Adopting Open Source Components

Author

  • Anh Duc Nguyen
  • Daniela S. Cruzes
  • Reidar Conradi
  • Martin Höst
  • Xavier Franch
  • Claudia P. Ayala

Summary, in English

Abstract in Undetermined
[Context and motivation] There is considerable flexibility in requirements specifications (both functional and non-functional), as well as in the features of available OSS components. This allows a collaborative matching and negotiation process between stakeholders such as: customers, software contractors and OSS communities, regarding desired requirements versus available and thus reusable OSS components. [Problem] However, inconclusive research exists on such cooperative processes. Not much empirical data exists supporting the conduction of such research based on observation of industrial OSS adoption projects. This paper investigates how functional and non-functional requirement mismatches are handled in practice. [Results] We found two common approaches to handle functional mismatches. The main resolution approach is to get the components changed by the development team, OSS community or commercial vendor. The other resolution approach is to influence requirements, often by postponing requirements. Overall, non-functional requirements are satisfactorily achieved by using OSS components. Last but not least, we found that the customer involvement could enhance functional mismatch resolution while OSS community involvement could improve non-functional mismatch resolution. [Contribution] Our data suggests that the selecting components should be done iteratively with close collaboration with stakeholders. Improvement in requirement mismatch resolution to requirements could be achieved by careful consideration of mismatches size, requirements flexibility and components quality.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

77-93

Publication/Series

Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality/Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Volume

7195

Document type

Conference paper

Topic

  • Computer Science

Conference name

18th International Working Conference, REFSQ 2012

Conference date

2012-03-19 - 2012-03-22

Conference place

Essen, Germany

Status

Published

Project

  • Embedded Applications Software Engineering

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1611-3349
  • ISSN: 0302-9743