Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Modeling and Analyzing Openness Trade-Offs in Software Platforms: A Goal-Oriented Approach

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Book cover Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 10153))

Abstract

Context and motivation: Open innovation is becoming an important strategy in software development. Following this strategy, software companies are increasingly opening up their platforms to third-party products for extension and completion. Question/problem: Opening up software platforms to third-party applications often involves difficult trade-offs between openness requirements and critical design concerns such as security, performance, privacy, and proprietary ownership. Deliberate assessment of these trade-offs is crucial to the ultimate quality and viability of an open software platform. Principal ideas/results: We propose to treat openness as a distinct class of non-functional requirements, and to model and analyze openness requirements and related trade-offs using a goal-oriented approach. The proposed approach allows to refine and analyze openness requirements in parallel with other competing concerns in designing software platforms. The refined requirements are used as criteria for selecting appropriate design options. We demonstrate our approach using an example of designing an open embedded software platform for the automotive domain reported in the literature. Contributions: The proposed approach allows to balance the fulfillment of interacting requirements in opening up platforms to third-party products, and to determine “good-enough” and “open-enough” platform design strategies.

The rights of this work are transferred to the extent transferable according to title 17 § 105 U.S.C.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. West, J.: How open is open enough?: Melding proprietary and open source platform strategies. Res. Policy 32(7), 1259–1285 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Chesbrough, H.W.: Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology. Harvard Business Press, Brighton (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Fitzgerald, B.: The transformation of open source software. MIS Q. 30(3), 587–598 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Boudreau, K.: Open platform strategies and innovation: granting access vs. devolving control. Manag. Sci. 56(10), 1849–1872 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Jansen, S., Brinkkemper, S., Souer, J., Luinenburg, L.: Shades of gray: opening up a software producing organization with the open software enterprise model. J. Syst. Softw. 85(7), 1495–1510 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Munir, H., Wnuk, K., Runeson, P.: Open innovation in software engineering: a systematic mapping study. Empirical Softw. Eng. 21(2), 1–40 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Knauss, E., Yussuf, A., Blincoe, K., Damian, D., Knauss, A.: Continuous clarification and emergent requirements flows in open-commercial software ecosystems. Requirements Eng. 21, 1–21 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Valenca, G., Alves, C.M., Heimann, V., Jansen, S., Brinkkemper, S.: Competition and collaboration in requirements engineering: a case study of an emerging software ecosystem. In: IEEE 22nd International Requirements Engineering Conference, pp. 384–393 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Ghazawneh, A., Henfridsson, O.: Balancing platform control and external contribution in third-party development: the boundary resources model. Inf. Syst. J. 23(2), 173–192 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Koch, S., Kerschbaum, M.: Joining a smartphone ecosystem: application developers’ motivations and decision criteria. Inf. Softw. Technol. 56(11), 1423–1435 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Shabtai, A., Fledel, Y., Kanonov, U., Elovici, Y., Dolev, S., Glezer, C.: Google android: a comprehensive security assessment. IEEE Secur. Priv. 2, 35–44 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Bosch, J., Bosch-Sijtsema, P.: From integration to composition: on the impact of software product lines, global development and ecosystems. J. Syst. Softw. 83(1), 67–76 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Scacchi, W.: Free/open source software development: recent research results and methods. Adv. Comput. 69, 243–295 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Feller, J., Fitzgerald, B.: A framework analysis of the open source software development paradigm. In: Proceedings of the Twenty First International Conference on Information Systems, pp. 58–69 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Popp, K.M.: Goals of software vendors for partner ecosystems – a practitioner´s view. In: Tyrväinen, P., Jansen, S., Cusumano, Michael, A. (eds.) ICSOB 2010. LNBIP, vol. 51, pp. 181–186. Springer, Heidelberg (2010). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-13633-7_17

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. Bosch, J.: Software ecosystems: taking software development beyond the boundaries of the organization. J. Syst. Softw. 85(7), 1453–1454 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Jarke, M., Loucopoulos, P., Lyytinen, K., Mylopoulos, J., Robinson, W.: The brave new world of design requirements. Inf. Syst. 36(7), 992–1008 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Anvaari, M., Jansen, S.: Evaluating architectural openness in mobile software platforms. In: Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on Software Architecture: Companion Volume, pp. 85–92, August 2010

    Google Scholar 

  19. Eklund, U., Bosch, J.: Architecture for embedded open software ecosystems. J. Syst. Softw. 92, 128–142 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Bosch, J.: Architecture challenges for software ecosystems. In: Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on Software Architecture: Companion Volume, pp. 93–95 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Cataldo, M., Herbsleb, J.D.: Architecting in software ecosystems: interface translucence as an enabler for scalable collaboration. In: Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on Software Architecture: Companion Volume, pp. 65–72 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Scacchi, W., Alspaugh, T.A.: Processes in securing open architecture software systems. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Software and System Process (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Baresi, L., Di Nitto, E., Ghezzi, C.: Toward open-world software: Issue and challenges. Computer 39(10), 36–43 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Chung, L., Nixon, B.A., Yu, E., Mylopoulos, J.: Non-functional Requirements in Software Engineering, vol. 5. Springer Science & Business Media, Heidelberg (2012)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  25. Horkoff, J., Yu, E.: Comparison and evaluation of goal-oriented satisfaction analysis techniques. Requirements Eng. 18(3), 199–222 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Christensen, H.B., Hansen, K.M., Kyng, M., Manikas, K.: Analysis and design of software ecosystem architectures–towards the 4S telemedicine ecosystem. Inf. Softw. Technol. 56(11), 1476–1492 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Boucharas, V., Jansen, S., Brinkkemper, S.: Formalizing software ecosystem modeling. In: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Open Component Ecosystems, pp. 41–50 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Sadi, M.H., Yu, E.: Designing software ecosystems: how can modeling techniques help? In: Gaaloul, K., Schmidt, R., Nurcan, S., Guerreiro, S., Ma, Q. (eds.) CAISE 2015. LNBIP, vol. 214, pp. 360–375. Springer, Heidelberg (2015). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19237-6_23

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  29. Sadi, M.H., Dai, J., Yu, E.: Designing software ecosystems: how to develop sustainable collaborations? In: Persson, A., Stirna, J. (eds.) CAISE 2015. LNBIP, vol. 215, pp. 161–173. Springer, Heidelberg (2015). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-19243-7_17

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  30. Wnuk, K., Runeson, P.: Engineering open innovation–towards a framework for fostering open innovation. In: Herzwurm, G., Margaria, T. (eds.) ICSOB 2013. LNBIP, vol. 150, pp. 48–59. Springer, Heidelberg (2013). doi:10.1007/978-3-642-39336-5_6

    Google Scholar 

  31. Linåker, J., Rempel, P., Regnell, B., Mäder, P.: How firms adapt and interact in open source ecosystems: analyzing stakeholder influence and collaboration patterns. In: Daneva, M., Pastor, O. (eds.) REFSQ 2016. LNCS, vol. 9619, pp. 63–81. Springer, Heidelberg (2016). doi:10.1007/978-3-319-30282-9_5

    Google Scholar 

  32. Linåker, J., Regnell, B., Munir, H.: Requirements engineering in open innovation: a research agenda. In: Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Software and System Process, pp. 208–212 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Franch, X., Susi, A.: Risk assessment in open source systems. In: Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering Companion, pp. 896–897 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Sadi, M.H., Yu, E.: Analyzing the evolution of software development: from creative chaos to software ecosystems. In: 2014 IEEE Eighth International Conference on Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), pp. 1–11 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Kazman, R., Klein, M., Barbacci, M., Longstaff, T., Lipson, H., Carriere, J.: The architecture tradeoff analysis method. In: Proceedings of the Fourth IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems, ICECCS 1998, pp. 68–78. IEEE (1998)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Mahsa H. Sadi & Eric Yu

  2. Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Eric Yu

Authors
  1. Mahsa H. Sadi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Eric Yu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mahsa H. Sadi .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

    Paul Grünbacher

  2. Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy

    Anna Perini

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Crown Copyright

About this paper

Cite this paper

Sadi, M.H., Yu, E. (2017). Modeling and Analyzing Openness Trade-Offs in Software Platforms: A Goal-Oriented Approach. In: Grünbacher, P., Perini, A. (eds) Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. REFSQ 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10153. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54045-0_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54045-0_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-54044-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-54045-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation