From software product lines to software ecosystems theory

The role of software platform and actors in software ecosystems. Grounded theory is a qualitative research method that seeks to develop theory that is grounded in data systematically gathered and analysed. Software has gone from obscurity to indispensability in less than fifty years. Sociotechnical ecosystems are living organisms that grow and shrink, that change velocity, and that split from, or merge with, others. Respect, integrity, courage, honesty, excellence, and service to others. This integration happens through components and thirdparty developers networks in software ecosystems secos. Towards a software startup ecosystems maturity model. In this setting, an organization develops a software platform with the intention of providing that platform for use and extension by softwareproducing organizations. We have explained the emergence and mode of operation of a software ecosystem, and provided a conceptual model of software ecosystems based on our findings. As an evolution of a product line, a software ecosystem seco represents. Product ecosystem theory is an emerging theory that describes how the design of manufactured products evolves over time and draws parallels with how species evolve within a natural ecosystem. Softwares product lines, global development and ecosystems. A software product line organization has many of the characteristics of an ecosystem within itself but it also participates in other larger ecosystems.

It describes the theoretical foundations of software. May 7, 2010 by slinger jansen leave a comment the question i will try to answer with this blog post is which forum is the best for your publication on software or ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to suggest guidelines for grounded theory studies in information systems. Pdf software product line companies increasingly expand their platform outside their. First, we identify and describe four architecture patterns that are applied multiple times across these product lines. Towards a software startup ecosystems maturity model daniel cukier 1, fabio kon, and norris krueger2 1 university of sao paulo department of computer science, sao paulo, sp, brazil 2 entrepreneurship northwest, boise, id, usa abstract.

We define the notion of software ecosystems and introduce a. Variability mechanisms in software ecosystems sciencedirect. We have proposed a theory of software ecosystems, rooted in sociotechnical theory and the concept of organizational ecology. Theoretical foundations of software ecosystems citeseerx. Mapping the systematic literature studies about software ecosystems. Exploring the success factors of mobile business ecosystems. Are there sound theoretical foundations and reliable empirical results for every. Software ecosystems, 20172018 studiegids universiteit. From software product lines to software ecosystems proceedings of. In the spring, yates monteith, john mcgregor and john ingram submitted their paper hadoop and its evolving ecosystem to the 5th international workshop on software ecosystems hosted at the 4th international conference on software business paper. Introduction to the software product lines and platform.

From software product lines to software ecosystems. Ecosystems software development at ecosystems glassdoor. The software industry has evolved to a multipleproduct development created on a platform and based on a common architecture integrated to other systems. From agile software product line engineering towards software ecosystems geir kjetil hanssen. In combination with the overall shift in the software industry from closed systems mindset towards open systems, the uptake of some asd principles for example active customer engagement, incremental and iterative development, and open information flows in product line organizations may contribute to the emergence of more flexible software. This is demonstrated by the use of the model in a case study of a hub in a software ecosystem. Although this seems trivial in theory, in practice. Software ecosystem, software product line, software architecture, decentralized. Software product line companies increasingly expand their platform outside their organizational boundaries, in effect transitioning to a software ecosystem. Software evolution in an industrial automation ecosystem. Evaluating the governance model of hardwaredependent software. In the next issue of strategic software engineering i will apply the ideas presented here to a software product line organization and will analyze several variations. An exploratory study of the adoption of mobile development.

In this book the authors explain, from a variety of perspectives, how software and the software industry are differenttechnologically, organizationally, and socially. Software product lines challenge traditional analysis techniques, such as. On the impact of software product lines global development and ecosystems. In software ecosystems, developers contribute their time, knowledge, and. I am so sorry to hear that you had a poor experience with working at ecosystems.

Software ecosystems are complex systems composed of multiple independent elements interacting with the system as a whole and with each other. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. A software ecosystem consists of the set of software solutions that enable, support and automate the activities and transactions by the actors in the associated social of business ecosytem and the organizations that provide these solutions. Three trends are driving an acceleration of the complexity, i.

The research in software ecosystems is a relatively young research area, but there are already several works. Awodele department of computer science, school of computing and engineering sciences, babcock university, ilishanremo, ogun state, nigeria. Development and evolution of software products is a challenging endeavor and a significant subfield of software engineering. Bosch, j from software product lines to software ecosystems.

An exploratory study 4 some researches consider the evolution of software product lines spls to. Software product line companies increasingly expand their platform outside their organizational boundaries, in effect transitioning to a software. In this paper, we discuss the emerging trend of software ecosystems and provide a overview of. Software ecosystems is an increasingly popular form of industry organization promoted by leading software vendors. From agile software product line engineering towards. The importance of sociotechnical resources for software. Spls typically consist of a software platform shared by a set of products. Messerschmitt and clemens szyperski that explains the essence and effects of a software ecosystem, defined as a set of businesses functioning as a unit and interacting with a shared market for software and services, together with relationships among them. Strategic software engineering clemson universitys.

Software product line companies increasingly expand their platform outside their organizational boundaries, in effect transitioning to a software ecosystem approach. In this paper, we discuss the emerging trend of software ecosystems and provide a overview of the key concepts and implications of adopting a software ecosystem approach. Analysis strategies for software product lines cmu school of. From applications to a software ecosystem platform. One of the commonly applied approaches to control and manage this process is software product line engineering sple. A software ecosystem is the interaction of a set of actors on top of a common technological platform that results in a number of software solutions or services. On reuse in multigoal testsuite generation for software product lines. Although other industries have followed a similar trajectory, software and its supporting industry are different. Using social networks to support software ecosystems. Whereas software product lines 1, 9, 23, 32 and open software ecosystems 16, 21, 24 already received attention in literature, to this end, no empirical results exist on collaboration and emerging architecture challenges for intraorganizational, yet decentralized software engineering. In addition, we propose the following extensions to trists concepts.

However, we argue that the challenges related to software ecosystem manage. Despite a significant body of research only few empirical results are available on. Platform based software engineering is at the heart of a new mode software product development in the context of software ecosystems. Architecture challenges for internal software ecosystems. The latter conference, international systems and software product line conference splc, concentrates on software product lines and software product family engineering 5. Largescale software development is complex, effort consuming and unpredictable and after decades of software engineering research we still have problems managing the constantly evolving complexity. Software engineering, software ecosystems, metamodeling, software product lines. Resulting from the technological revolution from the last decades, we observed many software startup ecosystems emerging around. The products can be organized in many ways, one example is the hierarchical. Since systems and software development processes present challenges beyond the technical side, secos have emerged as an. On the basis of a multicase study in six b2b software development companies, this paper explores the challenges involved in managing different ecosystem types. The purpose of this research is to present a model of success factors sf of mobile ecosystems.

Discussion of sociotechnical resources in two real ecosystems, bps portal and. Mobile business ecosystems are based on product innovations and complements created on platforms facilitating transactions between groups of users in a multisided market. Pdf from software product lines to software ecosystems. Jan has worked in various roles and industries and academia in the context of product lines. Accepted for splc 2009 th international software product line conference, august 2009 bosch, j. Arguably, software ecosystems are gaining importance with the advent of, e. The shared value of a software ecosystem is both the software product and the. What distinguishes a software ecosystem from a business. Variability mechanisms are wellresearched in the context of software product lines. These trends include the increasing adoption of software product lines, the globalization of software engineering and the increasing use of and reliance on 3rd party developers in the context of software ecosystems. A strategic modeling approach eric yu and stephanie deng faculty of information, university of toronto, toronto, canada m5s 3g6 abstract. In this episode we look at jans view of what is next for product lines.

Our premise is that the coevolution of the design, governance, and environmental dynamics of such ecosystems influences how they evolve. Software ecosystems the last decades have witnessed several strategies for managing the complexity of large scale software development, including software product lines spl and software ecosystems 1. Proceedings of the th international software product line confer ence. Fundamental to this theory is that manufactured product lines respond to external threats and opportunities in much the same way that species respond to threats and opportunities. Pdf from software product lines to software ecosystem. In software ecosystems secos both internal and external engineers develop software solutions for specific market segments and customers based on common technological platforms.

Jan bosch in from software product lines to software ecosystems 2009. Markus this episode is a conversation with jan bosch about product line engineering ple. As software ecosystems have emerged as a paradigm for maintaining large scale software product lines 4, many researchers and practitioners attempt to apply tools and techniques from software product line engineering sple. Softwareproductline engineering has gained considerable momentum in recent years, both in industry and in academia. Based on the three layer product model, we distinguish between innovation ecosystems, differentiating ecosystems and commoditizing ecosystems. Software ecosystems exist through the use of information and communication technology ict. The role of architectural styles in successful software.

Theoretical foundations of software ecosystems ceur workshop. Lars luthmann tu braunschweig, germany an io conformance testing theory for software product lines based on modal interface automata. Abstractsoftware ecosystem seco is a new and rapidly evolving phenomenon in the field of software engineering. The emergence of softwarebased platforms is shifting competition towards platformcentric ecosystems, although this phenomenon has not received much attention in information systems research. Our view of products, architecture, and software product lines we define a software product line as consisting of a software product line architecture, a set of reusable components and a number of software products. Software development and platform adoption as successive. These trends include the increasing adoption of software product lines, the globalization of software engineering and the increasing use of and reliance on 3rd party developers in. Secos were motivated by the software product lines spls approach aiming at allowing external developers to contribute to hitherto closed platforms 1. Carina alves, a theory of power in emerging software ecosystems. From software product management to software platform management slinger jansen, stef peeters, and sjaak brinkkemper department of information and computing sciences utrecht university, the netherlands s. Secos pose new challenges for software engineering as the platforms are evolved by different development teams and communities. Although software ecosystems are often seen as conceptual successors, the technology that sustains their success and growth is much less understood. Success for an ecosystem may be judged primarily in economic terms, but may alternatively be assessed with regard to other qualities, such as reduced timetomarket, widespread use, or adaptability. Also, the software ecosystems initiative is centralized in one central department, which has created a central knowledge hub for the creation of a software ecosystem.