Discovering, Modeling, and Re-enacting Work Processes and Practices in Free/Open Source Software Development Projects

1
Discovering, Modeling, and Re-enacting Work
Processes and Practices in Free/Open Source
Software Development Projects

• Walt Scacchi, Chris Jensen, John Noll and
  Margaret Elliott
• Institute for Software Research
• University of California, Irvine

2
Context

• Discovering hidden processes within a
  large-scale, global, loosely-coordinated open
  source software development (OSSD) project.
• Thousands of project participants
• Developing, managing, and evolving over one
  million knowledge-intensive artifacts
• Weakly coordinated by centralized authorities
• All data are open source

3
Context

• Discover, model, (re-)enact, and repair processes
• Discover process context, participant roles,
  tools, resources, interdependencies within and
  across projects over the Web
• Why?
• Enterprises dont know their processes
• Process improvement, optimization, redesign
• Process interdiction w/ competitive advantage

4
Overview

• Process discovery
• Process modeling
• Process re-enactment
• Discussion
• Conclusions

5
Process discovery

• Participant observation (online, Web-based)
• Collection and annotation of participant
  created/modified artifacts
• Objects of interaction
• How objects are situated in facilitating
  collaboration, conflict, or conflict mitigation
• Tracking artifacts added or modified in response
  to intra-community or inter-community dynamics
• Automated process data mining, categorization,
  and composition

6
Annotated chat transcript

• ltCyrilBgt Hello (Outsider Critique-1
• ltCyrilBgt Several images on the website seem to be
  made with non-free Adobe software, I hope I'm
  wrong it is quite shocking. Does anybody know
  more on the subject ?
• ltCyrilBgt We should avoid using non-free software
  at all cost, am I wrong ? (Extreme belief in free
  software (BIFS)-1)
• ltCyrilBgt Anyone awake in here ? Outsider
  Critique-1)

7
Current challenges

• Examining multiple OSSD processes across multiple
  interrelated OSSD projects.
• NetBeans.org, Mozilla.org, Apache.org,
  BioBeans.org, Tigris.org, Java Tool Community,
  etc.
• Leadership and control sharing within and across
  individuals, work groups, and projects as sources
  of coordination and conflict.

8
NetBeans.org Community Ecosystem
9
Boundary Objects of Interaction

• Development artifacts (software informalisms)
• Protocols
• HTTP, RPCs
• Shared data formats
• HTML, XML, CGI
• Community infrastructure tools
• Defect repositories (e.g. Bugzilla),
  Collaborative development and communication tools
  (e.g. CVS, online chat, discussion forums)
• Product infrastructure
• Plug-ins, Modules, Helper applications
• OSSD processes

10
Direct Interaction
Tomcat
11
Intra-community issues

• Collaboration
• Guidelines and policies
• Development tasks style guidelines public
  floggings
• Separation of concerns
• architectural strategy (plug-ins) for
  collaborative success
• freedom of extension/expression through
  contributed source code--reduces involvement with
  socio-political project issues
• Volunteer versus salaried developers--collaboratio
  n breakdowns lead to product failures

12
Intra-community issues

• Leadership and Control
• Accountability and expectations based on
  precedent and volunteerism
• Transparency in decision-making
• Project management limited to coordinating
  roles
• Consent in decision-making
• Many contributors assume consensus
  decision-making, and breakdowns arise when Sun
  asserts prerogative
• Conflict Resolution
• Not face-to-face
• Generally done in public via discourse
  transactions on discussion forums, else turned
  over to community governance board for resolution.

13
Indirect process interactions across projects
Tomcat integration into NetBeans, compliance with
W3C standards, Apache Ant integration into
NetBeans
NetBeans and Mozilla developers collaborate on
spell-checking module, NetBeans adopts Mozilla
super review process
Apache releases new version of Tomcat
NetBeans workarounds for Mozilla shortcuts
Changes in HTTP, CCS, DOM, URI/URL, XML, XHTML
standards
Bugzilla, compliance with W3C standard
protocols/data formats, compressed HTTP module
support, Javascript support
Browser-specific actions, browser-error
workarounds,
14
Inter-community issues

• Communication and collaboration
• Bug reports and feature requests
• Patches submitted
• Java.net, Java Tools Community, and Java
  Community Process
• Leadership and control across projects
• Sun NetBeans vs. IBM Eclipse
• Conflict resolution
• Mailing lists Slashdot Developer blogs

15
Process modeling

• Rich pictures with hyperlinked Use Case scenarios
• Directed and attributed resource flow graph
• Process domain ontology

16
Rich Picture
Funds, support, Promote Java/Open source
Sun Microsystems
Download and use free software
Share knowledge and ensure all community issues
are addressed
Ensure that the netbeans community is being run
in a fair and open manner
Configure and maintain CVS
Community Manager
Start new release phase, propose schedule/plan
respond to tech issues, unanswered questions
Release Manager
make decisions for the community, on high level
download new release
The Board
Users
release proposal, release updates, branch for
current release, release post mortem, review
release candidates (2) decide final release
report bugs
grant access
CVS Manager
Mailing Lists
Manage website
Website
Tools
deploy builds
download development builds and test, release
Q-builds
SourceCast
CVS
IssueZilla
decide features for the project and merge
patches/bug fixes, create module web page
Site Administrator
select feature to develop, bug to fix, download
netbeans, commit code
QA Team
Produce Q- builds and ensure quality of the
software
Maintain a project/ module, manage a group of
developers
Contribute to community, meet time constraints
for the release
grant CVS commit privilege to developers
Maintainer
Developers/ Contributors
Link to all Use Cases
Links to all Agents
Link to Tools
17
(No Transcript)
18
(No Transcript)
19
NetBeans
20
Process re-enactment

• Generating executable or re-enactable process
  specifications from ontology
• Low-fidelity process re-enactment support
• We dont try to model everything
• Focus on resource flow patterns
• Accommodate gaps and detect inconsistencies in
  process enactment models
• Re-enactments are interactive, navigational, and
  grounded in artifacts, tools, roles, and resource
  dependencies resulting from discovery and modeling

21
Formal model of a Netbeans.org process coded in
PML (excerpt)

• ...
• sequence Test
• action Execute automatic test scripts
• requires Test scripts, release binaries
• provides Test results
• tool Automated test suite (xtest, others)
• agent Sun ONE Studio QA team
• script / Executed off-site /
• action Execute manual test scripts
• requires Release binaries
• provides Test results
• tool NetBeans IDE
• agent users, developers, Sun ONE Studio QA
  team, Sun ONE Studio developers
• script / Executed off-site /
• iteration Update Issuezilla
• action Report issues to Issuezilla
• requires Test results
• provides Issuezilla entry
• tool Web browser

22
PML validation analysis

23
PML analysis detail (excerpt)

24
(No Transcript)
25
(No Transcript)
26
Discussion

• Patterns of interaction about objects or
  artifacts
• Discovering and modeling socio-technical and
  cultural evolution processes
• Validation strategies and tactics
• Process discovery, modeling, and re-enactment
  implications
• MKIDS Integration

27
Patterns of interaction about boundary
objects/artifacts

• Patterns can be detected and include
• Integration of a tool or support for a technology
  created by another community that create, update,
  or manage shared objects
• Defect detection and reduction
• Organizations contribute defect reports/patches
  detected in another organization's tool or
  technology implementation
• Infrastructure evolution planning
• Research contributing to discussions of
  future/changes in tools and technologies
• Discovery, assessment of effects on ones own
  community
• These interactions give rise to additional
  opportunities for coordination and conflict

28
Socio-technical and cultural evolution processes

• New processes under study
• Joining and contributing to a project in progress
• Role-task migration from project periphery to
  center
• Alliance formation and community development
• Independent and autonomous project communities
  can interlink via social networks that manipulate
  objects of interaction
• Enables possible exponential growth of
  interacting and interdependent community as
  socio-technical interaction network

29
(No Transcript)
30
Validation strategies and tactics

• Multi-mode modeling
• Collection and annotation of artifacts
• Rich pictures with hyperlinked Use Case scenarios
• Directed and attributed resource flow graph
• Process domain ontology construction
• Simulated process re-enactment
• Process model language generated from ontology
• PML compiled into re-enactment environment
• Automated PML source validation
• Simulated walkthrough of process
• Integration via ethnographic hypermedia
• Open to independent validation and interactive
  traceability

31
Discovery, modeling and
re-enactment implications

• Discovering, modeling, and understanding hidden
  software processes in large OSSD projects
• requires semi-automated process discovery
  techniques
• must span multi-project ecosystem
• Discovered processes (still) need to be modeled
  as narrative, hypermedia, and formal
  computational models.
• Understanding large, aggregated Internet-based
  projects requires process discovery, modeling
  tools, re-enactment and validation techniques.

32
Where Were Going
33
MKIDS Integration

• Integration with USC efforts examined and
  feasible
• Text analysis, categorization, summarization
• Process taxonomies
• Integration with OSU, Stanford, and CMU efforts
  appear feasible
• Task analysis
• Process simulation and modeling
• Social network analysis
• Other MKIDS modeling and scheduling efforts might
  be possible to integrate

34
Conclusions

• We are examining processes within and across
  multiple projects spanning multiple
  loosely-coupled communities
• Multiple project/organizational interaction may
  be coordinative or conflictive
• Interaction is driven by ongoing synchronization
  and stabilization of objects of interaction
  across project communities
• Project interaction patterns are emerging,
  detectable, modeled, and suitable for simulated
  re-enactment
• Discovering, modeling, validating, and
  re-enacting hidden processes within and across
  multiple inter-dependent projects is challenging
  and important.

35
References

• D.C. Atkinson, D.C. Weeks, and J. Noll. The
  Design of Evolutionary Process Modeling
  Languages, Proc. 11th Asia-Pacific Software
  Engineering Conf., Dec. 2004.
• D.C. Atkinson and J. Noll. Automated Validation
  and Verification of Process Models, Proc. 7th
  Intern. IASTED Conf. Software Engineering and
  Applications, November 2003.
• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Discovering, Modeling,
  and Reenacting Open Source Software Development
  Processes, Institute for Software Research,
  Submitted for publication, March 2004.
• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Process Modeling the
  Web Information Infrastructure, Proc. 5th.
  Software Process Simulation and Modeling
  Workshop, Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2004.

36
References

• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Data Mining for
  Software Process Discovery in Open Source
  Software Development Communities, Proc. Workshop
  on Mining Software Repositories, 96-100,
  Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2004.
• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Collaboration,
  Leadership, Control, and Conflict Negotiation in
  the NetBeans.org Community, Proc. 4th. Workshop
  on Open Source Software Engineering, 48-52,
  Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2004.
• W. Scacchi, Socio-Technical Interaction Networks
  in Free/Open Source Software Development
  Processes, revised version to appear in S.T.
  Acuña and N. Juristo (eds.), Peopleware and the
  Software Process, World Scientific Press, 2004.
• W. Scacchi, C. Jensen, J. Noll and M. Elliott,
  Multi-Modal Modeling of Open Source Software
  Requirements Processes, submitted for
  publication, September 2004.

37
Acknowledgements

• Project collaborators
• Darren Atkinson, Santa Clara University
• Margaret Ellliot, Chris Jensen, UCI-ISR
• Mark Ackerman, UMichigan, Ann Arbor
• Les Gasser, UIUC
• Funding support (no endorsement implied)
• National Science Foundation 0083075, 0205679,
  0205724, and 0350754.