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

Open source software ecosystems : a systematic mapping

Context: Open source software (OSS) and software ecosystems (SECOs) are two consolidated research areas in software engineering. OSS influences the way organizations develop, acquire, use and commercialize software. SECOs have emerged as a paradigm to understand dynamics and heterogeneity in collaborative software development. For this reason, SECOs appear as a valid instrument to analyze OSS systems. However, there are few studies that blend both topics together. Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the current state of the art in OSS ecosystems (OSSECOs) research, specifically: (a) what the most relevant definitions related to OSSECOs are; (b) what the particularities of this type of SECO are; and (c) how the knowledge about OSSECO is represented. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping following recommended practices. We applied automatic and manual searches on different sources and used a rigorous method to elicit the keywords from the research questions and selection criteria to retrieve the final papers. As a result, 82 papers were selected and evaluated. Threats to validity were identified and mitigated whenever possible. Results: The analysis allowed us to answer the research questions. Most notably, we did the following: (a) identified 64 terms related to the OSSECO and arranged them into a taxonomy; (b) built a genealogical tree to understand the genesis of the OSSECO term from related definitions; (c) analyzed the available definitions of SECO in the context of OSS; and (d) classified the existing modelling and analysis techniques of OSSECOs. Conclusion: As a summary of the systematic mapping, we conclude that existing research on several topics related to OSSECOs is still scarce (e.g., modelling and analysis techniques, quality models, standard definitions, etc.). This situation calls for further investigation efforts on how organizations and OSS communities actually understand OSSECOs.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Reviewing agent-based modelling of socio-ecosystems: a methodology for the analysis of climate change adaptation and sustainability

The integrated - environmental, economic and social - analysis of climate change calls for a paradigm shift as it is fundamentally a problem of complex, bottom-up and multi-agent human behaviour. There is a growing awareness that global environmental change dynamics and the related socio-economic implications involve a degree of complexity that requires an innovative modelling of combined social and ecological systems. Climate change policy can no longer be addressed separately from a broader context of adaptation and sustainability strategies. A vast body of literature on agent-based modelling (ABM) shows its potential to couple social and environmental models, to incorporate the influence of micro-level decision making in the system dynamics and to study the emergence of collective responses to policies. However, there are few publications which concretely apply this methodology to the study of climate change related issues. The analysis of the state of the art reported in this paper supports the idea that today ABM is an appropriate methodology for the bottom-up exploration of climate policies, especially because it can take into account adaptive behaviour and heterogeneity of the system's components.Review, Agent-Based Modelling, Socio-Ecosystems, Climate Change, Adaptation, Complexity.

Consistency-Preserving Evolution Planning on Feature Models

A software product line (SPL) enables large-scale reuse in a family of related software systems through configurable features. SPLs represent a long-term investment so that their ongoing evolution becomes paramount and requires careful planning. While existing approaches enable to create an evolution plan for an SPL on feature-model (FM) level, they assume the plan to be rigid and do not support retroactive changes. In this paper, we present a method that enables to create and retroactively adapt an FM evolution plan while preventing undesired impacts on its structural and logical consistency. This method is founded in structural operational semantics and linear temporal logic. We implement our method using rewriting logic, integrate it within an FM tool suite and perform an evaluation using a collection of existing FM evolution scenarios

Динамика генотипа в нейроэволюции агентов в моделях искусственной жизни

Кооперативна поведінка є однією з найбільш часто використовуваних та поширених рис для багатоагентних систем. У деяких випадках поява такої поведінки пов’язана із поділом населення на співіснуючі субпопуляції [1, 2]. Групова взаємодія може набувати не лише форми антагоністичного конфлікту, але й зумовлюватися генетичним дрейфом, який приводить до конкуренції поведінкових стратегій та можливої асиміляції [3]. Продемонстровано різні види залежностей між групами агентів та їх поведінковими стратегіями. Використано методологію спостереження за динамікою агентного генотипу [2], відповідно до якої популяція у просторі генотипів може мати вигляд хмари точок, кожна точка якої відповідає одній особині. Розглянуто динаміку центроїда населення — центра хмари генотипу. Аналіз таких траєкторій може сприяти дослідженню різних режимів існування популяції та їх зародження.Cooperation behavior is one of the most used and spread Multi-agent system feature. In some cases emergence of this behaviour can be characterized by division of population on co-evolving subpopulations [1], [2]. Group interaction can take not only antagonistic conflict form but also genetic drift that results with strategies competition and assimilation [3]. In this work we demonstrate different relation between agent grouping and they behavior strategies. We use approach proposed in work [2] methodology of agent genotype dynamic tracking, due to this approach the evolving population can be presented in genotype space as a cloud of points where each point corresponds to one individual. In current work consider the movement of population centroid – the center of the genotype cloud. Analysis of such trajectories can shad the light on the regimes of population existence and genesis.Кооперативное поведение является одной из наиболее часто используемых и распространенных черт для многоагентных систем. В некоторых случаях появление такого поведения связано с разделением населения на сосуществующие субпопуляции [1, 2]. Групповое взаимодействие может принимать не только форму антагонистического конфликта, но и обуслoвливаться генетическим дрейфом, приводящим к конкуренции поведенческих стратегий и возможной ассимиляции [3]. Продемонстрированы различные виды зависимостей между группами агентов и их поведенческими стратегиями. Использована методология наблюдения за динамикой агентного генотипа [2], согласно которой популяция может быть представлена в пространстве генотипов в виде облака точек, где каждая точка соответствует одной особи. Рассмотрена динамика центроида популяции — центр облака генотипа. Анализ таких траекторий может помочь исследованию различных режимов существования популяции и их зарождения