Investigating Advances in the Acquisition of Secure Systems Based on Open Architecture, Open Source Software, and Software Product Lines

Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Progra

Improving the distributed evolution of software through heuristic evaluation

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 65-67).In order to create the increasingly complex software systems needed to deal with today's technological challenges, we must be able to build on previous work. However, existing software solutions are quite often not an exact fit. Software developers have found multiple ways of approaching the problem of designing software that can be adapted as well as otherwise changed; Most of this effort has been aimed at the structural properties of the software, by creating open-architecture systems. However, there are still significant usability hurdles to overcome. A developer-oriented evaluation of open architecture interfaces could help meet some of these challenges. In this thesis, I present a set of guidelines for designing a developer-oriented interface for software open architectures, developed through a survey of several related fields. I use these guidelines to design and implement an interface to the Maritime Open Architecture Autonomy, one such software framework. Finally, through two case studies, I demonstrate the usefulness of these guidelines as the basis of a low cost method of usability evaluation. Study observations and limitations are presented, as well as suggestions for further research into heuristic evaluation.by Amy Jo Wooten.M.Eng

Software Licenses in Context: The Challenge of Heterogeneously-Licensed Systems

The prevailing approach to free/open source software and licenses has been that each system is developed, distributed, and used under the terms of a single license. But it is increasingly common for information systems and other software to be composed with components from a variety of sources, and with a diversity of licenses. This may result in possible license conflicts and organizational liability for failure to fulfill license obligations. Research and practice to date have not kept up with this sea-change in software licensing arising from free/open source software development. System consumers and users consequently rely on ad hoc heuristics (or costly legal advice) to determine which license rights and obligations are in effect, often with less than optimal results; consulting services are offered to identify unknowing unauthorized use of licensed software in information systems; and researchers have shown how the choice of a (single) specific license for a product affects project success and system adoption. Legal scholars have examined how pairs of software licenses conflict but only in simple contexts. We present an approach for understanding and modeling software licenses, as well as for analyzing conflicts among groups of licenses in realistic system contexts, and for guiding the acquisition, integration, or development of systems with free/open source components in such an environment. This work is based on an empirical analysis of representative software licenses and of heterogeneously-licensed systems. Our approach provides guidance for achieving a “best-of-breed” component strategy while obtaining desired license rights in exchange for acceptable obligations