A Study on the Brazilian Public Software Portal Ecosystem Life Cycle and Collaboration

The Brazilian Public Software Portal (BPS Portal) is a software ecosystem promoted by the Brazilian Government in order to share public software projects among the different federal administration sectors and entities. Although collaboration in the development of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects is considered one of the decisive factors for its success, there are no studies on its level in the BPS Portal. In addition, there exist few recent studies on the current state of the ecosystem, primarily regarding possible changes of incentive by its promoter, the Federal Government. In this context, an exploratory study was carried out on the GitLab platform of the BPS Portal with two different views: one regarding the representation and historical analysis of its life cycle and its different phases; and another in relation to the level of collaboration within each public software. The results indicated that the BPS Portal would currently be in the final phase of its life cycle (termination). It was also possible to identify a higher level of collaboration in public software created during the amplification phase.