A dynamic perspective on software modularity in open source software (OSS) development: A configurational approach

IF 5.7 2区 管理学 Q1 INFORMATION SCIENCE & LIBRARY SCIENCE Information and Organization Pub Date : 2024-01-12 DOI:10.1016/j.infoandorg.2023.100499
Eunyoung Moon , James Howison
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Abstract

To reduce technical and task interdependencies, modularization has been considered important in OSS development. However, the existing literature implicitly takes a static view that software structure and organizational structure are established early on and change slowly over time, if at all. Such a view does not fully reflect the complex and dynamic nature of software development and tends to overlook the role played by human agents as they ramp involvement up and down over time. This study considers that coordination practice plays an important role in altering technical interdependencies in OSS development. This study investigates coordination practices that result in changes in software coupling—in particular, increases in software coupling. This study automatically analyzes the code in 72 software releases and 1033 task episodes of three successful OSS projects—GNU grep, IPython, and Scikit-image. This study takes a fine-grained practice-oriented perspective that views the way that the work is done as constituting the organization. In our conceptualization, OSS contributors use a configuration of multiple organizational elements, enacted and varying across specific episodes of practice. In line with this perspective, this study takes a configurational approach, uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze episodes that led to decreases, no changes, and increases in software coupling during the inter-release periods in which the level of software coupling increased significantly, which we call focal period. We find that co-work involving multiple individuals tends to result in code that adds technical dependencies (increases in software coupling) during the focal period. To illustrate this beyond our fuzzy-set analysis, we present and discuss three episodes in narrative detail. The fine-grained, configurational analysis in this study supports the idea that the organizing process is ongoing enactment. In this study, OSS systems are an amalgam of code that builds up in different episodes each possibly different organizational configurations, rather than thinking of the OSS systems or projects as static or singular.

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从动态角度看开源软件(OSS)开发中的软件模块化:配置方法
为了减少技术和任务之间的相互依赖,模块化被认为在开放源码软件开发中非常重要。然而,现有文献隐含着一种静态观点,即软件结构和组织结构在早期就已建立,随着时间的推移变化缓慢(如果有的话)。这种观点并不能充分反映软件开发的复杂性和动态性,而且往往会忽视人的作用,因为人的参与会随着时间的推移而增加或减少。本研究认为,协调实践在改变开放源码软件开发中的技术相互依存关系方面发挥着重要作用。本研究调查了导致软件耦合变化的协调实践,特别是软件耦合的增加。本研究自动分析了三个成功的开放源码软件项目--GNU grep、IPython 和 Scikit-image 的 72 个软件版本和 1033 个任务事件中的代码。本研究从细粒度的实践导向角度出发,将工作方式视为组织的构成。在我们的概念中,开放源码软件的贡献者使用多种组织元素的组合,这些元素在具体的实践过程中不断发展和变化。根据这一观点,本研究采用了一种配置方法,使用模糊集定性比较分析(fsQCA)来分析在软件耦合水平显著增加的发布间歇期(我们称之为焦点期)中导致软件耦合减少、无变化和增加的事件。我们发现,在焦点时期,涉及多人的合作往往会导致代码增加技术依赖性(软件耦合增加)。为了在模糊集分析之外说明这一点,我们详细介绍并讨论了三个事件。本研究中的细粒度配置分析支持了组织过程是持续颁布过程这一观点。在本研究中,开放源码软件系统是代码的混合体,在不同的事件中建立起来,每个事件都可能有不同的组织配置,而不是把开放源码软件系统或项目看作是静态或单一的。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
11.20
自引率
1.60%
发文量
18
期刊介绍: Advances in information and communication technologies are associated with a wide and increasing range of social consequences, which are experienced by individuals, work groups, organizations, interorganizational networks, and societies at large. Information technologies are implicated in all industries and in public as well as private enterprises. Understanding the relationships between information technologies and social organization is an increasingly important and urgent social and scholarly concern in many disciplinary fields.Information and Organization seeks to publish original scholarly articles on the relationships between information technologies and social organization. It seeks a scholarly understanding that is based on empirical research and relevant theory.
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