Leveraging Context in Open Software Development Ecosystems

当及时进入市场和对客户的快速响应是生存的关键时，本提案提出了开发软件的新方法。软件开发已经超越了单一的办公室或公司，进入了向软件生态系统过渡的开放、协作和全球开发”，作为：“组织或参与者的网络社区，它们彼此之间的关系建立在对开发和使用中心软件技术的共同兴趣之上”。生态系统支持基于前所未有的参与性、协作性方法来定义产品特性和软件开发的新工作方式。例如，不列颠哥伦比亚省最近启动了一项大型倡议（www.bcdevexchange.org），在该倡议中，公共和私营部门组织在一个生态系统中合作，在开发更有效地为该省服务的产品时共享公共数据。****研究一致表明，只有37%的软件项目是成功的。对市场需求、项目规划和绩效的不了解是失败的主要原因。今天的组织有独特的机会来保持竞争力，并通过利用来自其生态系统内的丰富信息（环境）来避免项目失败。例如，通过分析产品外部利益相关者（如客户或合作组织）对产品特性的重要性的反馈，可以更好地制定项目计划；当开发人员可以跟踪代码的更改，包括谁进行了更改以及为什么进行更改时，项目性能会显著提高，包括他们自己的或生态系统中依赖的项目。尽管上下文信息有如此重要的影响，软件组织目前还没有技术和工具来有效地利用它。****这项研究将发展(1)影响项目绩效和计划的软件生态系统中环境的作用和效用的理论，以及(2)为产品经理和开发人员自动总结这种环境的技术。在与工业伙伴的合作中，我们迭代地研究工作中的开发人员，发展我们的理论和技术，并在实践中对其进行评估。***我们的研究将显著影响组织及其在开放软件生态系统中的新工作方式。管理人员将能够自动分析来自生态系统的信息，并在软件开发计划和执行中有效地使用它，以确保适当的产品方向和质量。此外，我们的工具将通过总结来自各种来源的上下文来提高开发人员的工作效率，减少开发人员必须搜索的信息源的数量。特别是与加拿大工业相关，我们的工具将提供给我们的合作伙伴（例如IBM），以及维多利亚的初创公司和BCDevExchange合作伙伴。对于所有这些组织来说，成功取决于生态系统的参与和反馈。

This proposal addresses the new ways of developing software when time to market and fast response to customers is key to survival. Software development has gone beyond a single office or company and into open, collaborative, and global development transitioning to software ecosystems', as: “networked communities of organizations or actors, which base their relations to each other on a common interest in the development and use of a central software technology”. Ecosystems support new ways of working based on an unprecedented participatory, collaborative approach to defining product features and software development. The province of British Columbia for example, has recently started a large initiative (www.bcdevexchange.org) in which public and private sector organizations collaborate in an ecosystem where public data is shared in the development of products that serve the province more effectively.****Studies consistently show that only 37% of software projects are successful [11]. Poor understanding of market demands, project planning and performance are top reasons for failure. Today's organizations have the unique opportunity to stay competitive and avoid project failure by leveraging a wealth of information (context) from within their ecosystem. For example, projects plan better by analyzing feedback on the criticality of product features from stakeholders external to a product (e.g. customers or partnering organizations); project performance significantly increases when developers can track changes to code, including who made the changes and why, of their own or dependent projects in the ecosystem. Despite this significant impact of contextual information, software organizations do not currently have the techniques and tools to leverage it effectively.****This research will develop (1) theories of the role and utility of context in software ecosystems that impact project performance and planning, and (2) techniques to automatically summarize this context for product managers and developers. In collaboration with industrial partners, we iteratively study developers at work, develop our theories and techniques and evaluate them in practice.***Our research will significantly impact organizations and their new ways of working in open software ecosystems. Managers will be able to automatically analyze information from the ecosystem and use it effectively in software development planning and execution to ensure appropriate product direction and quality. Further, our tools will improve developer productivity by summarizing context from various sources, reducing the amount of information sources developers must scour. Particularly relevant to the Canadian industry, our tools will be available to our partners (e.g. IBM), but also Victoria-based startups and the BCDevExchange partners. For all these organizations, success depends on the ecosystem engagement and feedback.