2010-01-15

The times when the open source arena was primarily viewed as a playground reserved solely for programming geeks and nerds has been a thing of the past for quite some time now.   Especially so since the industry has recognized the potential of open source software and taken an active role in it.  Much research has been focused on the analysis of pros and cons of different aspects of open source software.  Open source business models have emerged, and many companies, especially the software oriented ones, have found involvement in the open source to be crucial in their market positioning.

During the year, a systematic review of existing research on commercial aspects of open source was completed. The goal was not to propose a new method or framework for dealing with commercial aspects of the open source, but rather to assess and categorize the research on commercial aspects of open source published thus far.

An aspect of open source that caught the attention of EASE, especially since the systematic review identified that no research was conducted in this area, on how the source code quality characteristics change as the code is released from proprietary to the open source arena. 

This research will bring more clarity and understanding to the release process and the most important factors surrounding it.

Since EASE is a long-term project, it can provide researches with insights on how software evolves in open source environment over a period of several years.

– A finished case study on the transition of the database management system Ingres to open source shows that the static code quality metrics improved, says Alma Orucevic-Alagic,
PhD student in EASE theme C.

A long-term study that will follow the whereabouts of the mobile operating system Android is now started. This study will investigate several aspects; the Android community, project structure, and evolvement of software code quality and architecture.

Jonas Wisbrant

Källa: EASE