Coopetition of software firms in Open source software ecosystems

Software firms participate in an ecosystem as a part of their innovation strategy to extend value creation beyond the firms boundary. Participation in an open and independent environment also implies the competition among firms with similar business models and targeted markets. Hence, firms need to consider potential opportunities and challenges upfront. This study explores how software firms interact with others in OSS ecosystems from a coopetition perspective. We performed a quantitative and qualitative analysis of three OSS projects. Finding shows that software firms emphasize the co-creation of common value and partly react to the potential competitiveness on OSS ecosystems. Six themes about coopetition were identified, including spanning gatekeepers, securing communication, open-core sourcing and filtering shared code. Our work contributes to software engineering research with a rich description of coopetition in OSS ecosystems. Moreover, we also come up with several implications for software firms in pursing a harmony participation in OSS ecosystems.Comment: This is the author's version of the work. Copyright owner's version can be accessed at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-69191-6_10, Coopetition of software firms in Open source software ecosystems, 8th ICSOB 2017, Essen, Germany (2017

An Introduction to Software Ecosystems

This chapter defines and presents different kinds of software ecosystems. The focus is on the development, tooling and analytics aspects of software ecosystems, i.e., communities of software developers and the interconnected software components (e.g., projects, libraries, packages, repositories, plug-ins, apps) they are developing and maintaining. The technical and social dependencies between these developers and software components form a socio-technical dependency network, and the dynamics of this network change over time. We classify and provide several examples of such ecosystems. The chapter also introduces and clarifies the relevant terms needed to understand and analyse these ecosystems, as well as the techniques and research methods that can be used to analyse different aspects of these ecosystems.Comment: Preprint of chapter "An Introduction to Software Ecosystems" by Tom Mens and Coen De Roover, published in the book "Software Ecosystems: Tooling and Analytics" (eds. T. Mens, C. De Roover, A. Cleve), 2023, ISBN 978-3-031-36059-6, reproduced with permission of Springer. The final authenticated version of the book and this chapter is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36060-

A checklist for choosing between R packages in ecology and evolution

The open source and free programming language R is a phenomenal mechanism to address a multiplicity of challenges in ecology and evolution. It is also a complex ecosystem because of the diversity of solutions available to the analyst. Packages for R enhance and specialize the capacity to explore both niche data/experiments and more common needs. However, the paradox of choice or how we select between many seemingly similar options can be overwhelming and lead to different potential outcomes. There is extensive choice in ecology and evolution between packages for both fundamental statistics and for more specialized domain‐level analyses. Here, we provide a checklist to inform these decisions based on the principles of resilience, need, and integration with scientific workflows for evidence. It is important to explore choices in any analytical coding environment—not just R—for solutions to challenges in ecology and evolution, and document this process because it advances reproducible science, promotes a deeper understand of the scientific evidence, and ensures that the outcomes are correct, representative, and robust.York University Librarie

A Systematic Mapping Study on Requirements Engineering in Software Ecosystems

Software ecosystems (SECOs) and open innovation processes have been claimed as a way forward for the software industry. A proper understanding of requirements is as important for these IT-systems as for more traditional ones. This paper presents a mapping study on the issues of requirements engineering and quality aspects in SECOs and analyzes emerging ideas. Our findings indicate that among the various phases or subtasks of requirements engineering, most of the SECO specific research has been accomplished on elicitation, analysis, and modeling. On the other hand, requirements selection, prioritization, verification, and traceability has attracted few published studies. Among the various quality attributes, most of the SECOs research has been performed on security, performance and testability. On the other hand, reliability, safety, maintainability, transparency, usability attracted few published studies. The paper provides a review of the academic literature about SECO-related requirements engineering activities, modeling approaches, and quality attributes, positions the source publications in a taxonomy of issues and identifies gaps where there has been little research.Comment: Journal of Information Technology Research (JITR) 11(1

A Value Co-creation Perspective on Information Systems Analysis and Design

Information systems analysis and design (ISAD) ensures the design of information systems (IS) in line with the requirements of a business environment. Since ISAD approaches follow the currently dominant logic of busi- ness, the rise of a new and thriving business logic may require revisiting and advancing extant ISAD approaches and techniques. One of the prevailing debates in marketing research is the paradigmatic shift from a goods-dominant (G-D) to a service-dominant (S-D) logic of business. The cornerstone of this reorientation is the concept of value co- creation emphasizing joint value creation among a variety of actors within a business network. With the aim of introducing value co-creation as a new discourse to ISAD research, this research note argues that (1) the lens of S-D logic with its core concept of value co-creation provides a novel perspective to ISAD. The authors also assert that (2) value co-creation-informed IS design realizes the paradig- matic shift from G-D to S-D logic. Building on this mutual relationship between value co-creation and ISAD, they propose a research agenda and discuss the ISAD artifacts that prospective research may target

From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

Becoming a keystone: How incumbents can leverage technological change to create ecosystems

The proliferation of digital technology and automation in the 21st century has created a need to\ua0revisit established theories on value creation. Exponential advances in Internet of Things (IoT)\ua0technologies are dismantling firm- and industry-specific value creation processes. The firms\ua0developing digital technology-based products and services typically participate in broad\ua0networks, which allows them to integrate distinct systems and technologies to produce a focal\ua0value proposition. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how incumbents can leverage\ua0technological change to create an innovation ecosystem.\ua0The concept of an innovation ecosystem is a powerful analogy to explain value co-creation in\ua0a network. In general, ecosystems are broad cooperative networks, in which the actors coalesce\ua0organically and co-evolve through the construction of a value proposition. Although several\ua0scholars have studied value co-creation in an ecosystem, few have explored the process of\ua0ecosystem emergence. Also, extant research on ecosystem primarily investigates orchestration\ua0capabilities from the perspective of technology firms or new entrants that emerge within an\ua0ecosystem. Few empirical studies investigate how incumbent firms can co-create value and\ua0develop capabilities to orchestrate an ecosystem as a keystone actor.In this context, this thesis investigates a manufacturing firm’s efforts to develop a new\ua0technology. The research was designed as an ethnographic in-depth case study of Volvo Car\ua0Group, an incumbent in the automotive industry. The thesis employs a qualitative abductive\ua0research approach to explore the collaborations related to the development of AD technology,\ua0a discontinuous technological change for incumbent automotive firms. Based on a four-year\ua0longitudinal case study and findings from four papers, the thesis makes important contributions\ua0to scholarly understanding of ecosystem emergence in traditional industries.This thesis makes three main contributions to literature on innovation ecosystems: (1) it\ua0describes ‘layered modularity’ as a design mechanism that facilitates joint value creation\ua0leading to the emergence of an innovation ecosystem, (2) it shows how developing physical\ua0products (such as devices or hardware platforms) and digital systems (such as IoT technologies\ua0or software) in distinct layers allows intertwining of divergent innovation activities anddevelopment methods, (3) it distinguishes between three distinct activities – cooperation,\ua0coordination and competition – that incumbents firms need to manage in order to become a\ua0keystone actor and orchestrate the ecosystem. The findings presented in this thesis have\ua0important implications for manufacturing firms looking to leverage a DTC to create new\ua0ecosystems