Stakeholders' social interaction in requirements engineering of open source software

Abstract

Requirements engineering (RE) involves human-centric activities that require interaction among different stakeholders. Traditionally, RE has been considered as a centralized, collocated, and phase-specific process. However, in open-source software (OSS) development environment, the core RE activities are iterative and dynamic and follow a rather decentralized software engineering paradigm. This crosscutting characteristic of open-source RE can be conceptualized using the “Twin Peaks” model that weaves RE together with software architecture. Although many weaving mechanisms have been proposed in recent years, lack of theoretical underpinning limits a mechanism's applicability and usefulness in different scenarios. In this research proposal, we hypothesize stakeholders' social interaction as an ecologically valid weaving mechanism of the “Twin Peaks” in open-source RE. We further outline a concrete research plan to examine the generalizability of this weaving mechanism for three activities: requirements identification, requirements implementation, and creativity in RE. Carrying out this research plan will enable us to gain valuable insights to generate guidelines for enhancing software engineering practice in relevant areas.