UPGRADE: Vol. VIII, issue no. 6, December 2007 - Free Software: Research and Development

Free Software: Research
and Development

Published on behalf of CEPIS by Novática (ATI, Spain)

Chief Editor: Llorenç Pagés-Casas, <pages AT ati DOT es>

Associate Editors:

François Louis Nicolet, <nicolet AT acm DOT org>; Roberto Carniel, <rcarniel AT dgt DOT uniud DOT it>;
Zakaria Maamar, <Zakaria DOT Maamar AT zu DOT ac DOT ae>; Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui, <soraya DOT kouadrimostefaoui AT unifr DOT ch>, Rafael Fernández Calvo, <rfcalvo AT ati DOT es>.

Abstract: Some free software and open source projects have been extremely successful in the past. The success of a project is often related to the number of developers it can attract: a larger community of developers (the “bazaar”) identifies and corrects more software defects and adds more features via a peer-review process. In this paper two free software projects (Wine and Arla) are empirically explored in order to characterize their software lifecycle, development processes and communities. Both the projects show a phase where the number of active developers and the actual work performed on the system is constant, or does not grow: we argued that this phase corresponds to the one termed “cathedral” in the literature. One of the two projects (Wine) shows also a second phase: a sudden growing amount of developers corresponds to a similar growing output produced: we termed this as the “bazaar” phase, and we also argued that this phase was not achieved for the other system. A further analysis revealed that the transition between “cathedral” and “bazaar” was a phase by itself in Wine, achieved by creating a growing amount of new modules, which attracted new developers.

Abstract: Suppose the entire social and commercial fabric supporting the creation of software is changing—changing by becoming completely a commons and thereby dropping dramatically in cost. How would the world change and how would we recognize the changes? Software would not be continually recreated by different organizations, so the global “efficiency” of software production would increase dramatically; therefore it would be possible to create value without waste, experimentation and risk-taking would become affordable (and probably necessary because firms could not charge for their duplication of infrastructure), and the size and complexity of built systems would increase dramatically, perhaps beyond human comprehension. As important or more so, the activities of creating software would become the provenance of people, organizations, and disciplines who today are mostly considered consumers of software—there would, in a very real sense, be only a single software system in existence, continually growing; it would be an ecology husbanded along by economists, sociologists, governments, clubs, communities, and herds of disciplines. New business models would be developed, perhaps at an alarming rate. How should we design our research to observe and understand this change? There is some evidence the change is underway, as the result of the adoption of open source by companies who are not merely appreciative receivers of gifts from the evangelizers of open source, but who are clever thieves repurposing the ideas and making up new ones of their own.

Abstract: Traditionally, research projects tend to be less than transparent, only showing to the public selected deliverables but no internal information. Normally no information about how the research project is progressing is available as public data. Even the partners of the project tend to be unaware of how the other partners are getting on. In this respect, research projects are similar to traditional software development projects. Research projects in the field of Information Society Technologies share some features with libre (free / open source) software projects, such as global distributed development and the possibility of teleworking. In the light of the above, in this paper we present a proposal to manage research projects, adopting methods used in the libre software community, and using libre software tools. Our methodology
facilitates communication flows between the various partners of the project, even if they are geographically dispersed, and also allows selected internal information to be shared with the general public. Furthermore, by adopting this methodology, several additional possibilities arise, among which are automated public activity reports, project
progress analyses, and technological watching and foresight techniques. We firmly believe that this new approach to managing research projects presents a number of advantages over traditional organization methods, and may improve the performance of research projects.

Abstract: Nowadays, wireless communications networks are one of the fastest growing segments of the communications field. The increasing demand for services and the need for mobility have changed the traditional model of Internet connectivity based only on access through fixed networks. Starting from both the portable devices and the current wireless access network position, we propose a system designed to provide mobility and ubiquity in a university campus environment, easily adaptable to all kind of organizations. In this paper we present Campus Ubicuo, a research, development and innovation project in mobile communications field. The project, which is developed using free software, aims to offer the user ubiquity through advanced communications services over wireless networks. Moreover, the project development has allowed
researching into IP mobility and interference analysis produced by several wireless communications technologies.

The Case of the University of Cadiz's Free Software Office among Spanish Universities [PDF: 6 pages]
José-Rafael Rodríguez-Galván, Manuel Palomo-Duarte, Juan-Carlos González-Cerezo, Gerardo Aburruzaga-García, Antonio García-Domínguez, and Alejandro Álvarez-Ayllón
Abstract: During the first years of the twenty first century, executive bodies at Spanish universities were becoming increasingly interested in using free software as a means to their ends. We will describe below the case of the Free Software Office of the University of Cádiz, showing its structure and the problems that such an organization must deal with. Later on, the main projects we have been focusing on since the Office’s inception in 2003 will be enumerated, pointing out similarities between other offices and secretariats akin to ours.

On Understanding how to Introduce an Innovation to an Open Source Project [PDF: 5 pages]
Christopher Oezbek and Lutz Prechelt
Abstract: We propose to research the introduction of Software Engineering inventions into Open Source projects (1) to help researchers with creating opportunities for evaluating their tools, methods and process designs in real-life settings, and (2) to help Open Source projects with improving their processes based on state-of-the-art knowledge. Such research will go beyond diffusion and dissemination of inventions to active introduction, and thus increase the chances of adoption. We will discuss the research approach, our preliminary insights, limitations of the approach, and why researchers interested in evaluating their own inventions should be interested in this research.

3D Distributed Rendering and Optimization using Free Software [PDF: 9 pages]
Carlos González-Morcillo, Gerhard Weiss, David Vallejo-Fernández, Luis Jiménez-Linares, and Javier Albusac-Jiménez
Abstract: The media industry is demanding high fidelity images for 3D synthesis projects. One of the main phases is Rendering, the process in which a 2D image can be obtained from the abstract definition of a 3D scene. Despite developing new techniques and algorithms, this process is computationally intensive and requires a lot of time to be done, especially when the source scene is complex or when photo-realistic images are required. This paper describes Yafrid (standing for Yeah! A Free Render grID) and MAgArRO (Multi Agent AppRoach to Rendering Optimization) architectures, which have been developed at the University of Castilla-La Mancha for distributed rendering optimization.

Identifying Success and Tragedy of FLOSS Commons: A Preliminary Classification of Sourceforge.net Projects [PDF: 6 pages] [Final version: 5 pages]
Robert English and Charles M. Schweik
Abstract: Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects are a form of commons where individuals work collectively to produce software that is a public, rather than a private, good. The famous phrase “Tragedy of the Commons” describes a situation where a natural resource commons, such as a pasture, or a water supply, gets depleted because of overuse. The tragedy in FLOSS commons is distinctly different: It occurs when collective action ceases before a software product is produced or reaches its full potential. This paper builds on previous work about defining success in FLOSS projects by taking a collective action perspective. We first report the results of interviews with FLOSS developers regarding our ideas about success and failure in FLOSS projects. Building on those interviews and previous work, we then describe our criteria for defining success/tragedy in FLOSS commons. Finally, we discuss the results of a preliminary classification of nearly all projects hosted on Sourceforge.net as of August 2006.
Errata Notice: The PDF of this article, edited by UPGRADE, contains the version of the article that was originally approved for publication. After that, the authors submitted a final version, based on feedback from open source researchers, changing some key terminology. They also updated slightly their data. Unfortunately, we published the obsolete version. Our apologies for that mistake. You can retrieve the final version of this article by clicking here. Note that even the title has been slightly changed: Identifying Success and Abandonment of FLOSS Commons: A Classification of Sourceforge.net Projects.

Manuel Palomo-Duarte received his M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from the Universidad de Sevilla (2001). He works as a full-time lecturer in the Department of Computer Languages and Systems at the Universidad de Cádiz where he teaches subjects related to operating systems and videogame design using libre software. He is also an Erasmus Coordinator for the B.Sc degree in Computer Science “Ingeniería Técnica en Informática de Sistemas” He is a member of the “Software Process Improvement and Formal Methods” research group and he is pursuing his Ph.D. on quality in BPEL web services compositions. Since he joined the Universidad de Cádiz he has collaborated with the Free Software Office, mainly in relation to the following conferences: 3rd Free Software Conference at the Universidad de Cádiz (JOSLUCA3) and the 1st FLOSS International Conference (FLOSSIC 2007). <manuel.palomo@uca.es>.

José-Rafael Rodríguez-Galván works as a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at the Universidad de Cádiz. Since 2004 he has chaired OSLUCA (Libre Software Office of the Universidad de Cádiz), organizing several projects including the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Free Software Conferences at the Universidad de Cádiz and the 1st FLOSS International Conference (FLOSSIC 2007). He has been invited as a speaker to many meetings and symposiums relating to libre software and University. He is also member of UCA researching group FQM-315, where he develops his research in numerical simulation of equations for partial derivatives applied to fluid mechanics. <rafael.rodriguez@uca.es>.

Israel Herraiz-Tabernero is a Ph.D. student at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain. His research is related to the evolution of libre software projects. In particular, he is using time series analysis and other statistical methods to characterize the evolution of software projects. He has participated in several research projects funded by the Framework Programme of the European Commission (QUALOSS, FLOSSMetrics, QUALIPSO, CALIBRE). He has also collaborated on other projects funded by companies such as Vodafone and Telefonica. He has participated in the writing of manuals about managing and starting libre software projects. For example, together with Juan-José Amor and Gregorio Robles he wrote a manual for the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya’s Master Programme in Free Software. He has been a reviewer for the IEEE Africon 2007 among other conferences and for the journal IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. He is currently a research and teaching assistant at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, pursuing his PhD on the evolution of libre software. He also coordinates the programme of the Libre Software Master offered by the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, in collaboration with Igalia and Caixa Nova. <www.herraiz@gsyc.escert.urjc.es>.

Andrea Capiluppi obtained his Ph.D. from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy. In October 2003 he was a visiting researcher in the Grupo de Sistemas y Comunicaciones of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain. From January 2004 to the present he has been a visiting researcher in the Department of Maths and Computing at the Open University, UK, working in collaboration with Drs. Juan Ramil, Neil Smith, Helen Sharp, Alvaro Faria, and Sarah Beecham. This appointment has been renewed
until December 2008. In January 2006, he joined the University of Lincoln as a Senior Lecturer. <acapiluppi@lincoln.ac.uk>.

UPENET (UPGRADE European NETwork) [PDF: 8 pages]

From Novática (ATI, Spain)
ICT Security
Security of Electronic Passports
Václav Matyáš, Zdeněk Říha, and Petr Švénda

This paper will be published, in Spanish, by Novática. Novática, a founding member of UPENET, is a bimonthly journal published, in Spanish, by the Spanish CEPIS society ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática – Association of Computer Professionals).

Abstract: The electronic part of the passport should increase the security of the whole document but at the same time brings in new threats to the privacy of the passport holder. Therefore electronic passports need to implement a new set of security features. This article discusses the principles and the effectiveness of these security features.

Monograph: Free Software: Research and Development

Presentation
Free Software: Scientific and Technological Innovation [PDF: 3 pages]
(includes a set of useful references about the matter)
Andrea Capiluppi, Rafael Rodríguez-Galván, Manuel Palomo-Duarte, and Israel Herraiz-Tabernero - Guest Editors

In recent years we have seen how free software has evolved from being a software development model (with all its ethical and technical implications) to playing a key
role in the development strategies of companies, institutions, regions, and even entire countries. Examples such as the Brazilian Government’s support of Free Software
[1][2] or the Andalusian Regional Government’s adoption of free licensing for all its developments [3][4][5], have caused more and more institutions and associations
to study the long term implications of adopting the free software model.

One of the most important milestones was the “Study on the economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU” [6] developed for the European Commission by UNUMERIT. It concludes that Free Software offers one of the best chances for the European ICT sector to become a worldwide player and promote RDI (Research, Development & Innovation) initiatives.

In the framework of this scenario we have published this special issue of Novática and UPGRADE on “Free Software: research and development”, almost an annual
event for the IT community. As usual, most of its content is published under a free license. After a brief introductory article entitled “The Need for Libre Software Research in Europe” by the guest editors of the monograph, we kick off with the paper “From the Cathedral to the Bazaar: an Empirical Study of the Lifecycle of Volunteer Community Projects” which presents a comparison between the development communities of two prestigious free software projects, Wine and Arla. In particular the article compares the number of developers who have contributed to the project during its lifecycle.

Based on these metrics and an analysis of information available from the project (such as ChangeLogs), the author concludes that the cathedral and bazaar models are
not mutually exclusive during the lifecycle of a volunteer community project. While remaining in a cathedral phase does not necessarily imply failure (because the project may be meeting its goals), transition to a bazaar model would move the project on to a phase in which the development community would continue to grow. And it is the development community who can make this change happen.

Next up is one of the most interesting articles published in the “Workshop on Emerging Trends in FLOSS Research and Development 2007” (FLOSS 2007) [7], “The Commons as New Economy and what this Means for Research”. This paper looks at how the ICT world would change if companies were to adopt and develop free
software en masse. It analyses some of the consequences, such as a drastic drop in the cost of licenses or the reduction of the risk and cost of software experimentation. This would lead to a really interesting scenario and would open up new avenues in ICT teaching since the latest source code would be available to be studied and improved on by students. Programming would change radically, and it would become a matter of finding and integrating code rather than a creating new code from scratch Also the monetary and human resources needed to develop and deploy Ultra-Large Scale Systems would be reduced.

The paper “Libre Software for Research” by the Systems and Communications Group, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain), demonstrates how research groups can benefit from the adoption of a free software methodology. This methodology and its associated protocols can improve communication between globally distributed
members and increase the visibility of reports, products, and internal information. All, naturally, in a free software environment.

The next paper is focused on telecommunications: “Technological Innovation in Mobile Communications Developed with Free Software: Campus Ubicuo”. It describes the results of a collaboration between the GITACA research group and a company supported by the Extremadura regional government (Spain). This project has developed a solution (Campus Ubicuo) for the increasing demand for services and the need for mobility that has changed the traditional model of Internet connectivity based solely on access via fixed networks. Campus Ubicuo has been developed using free/libre software and aims to offer user ubiquity through advanced communications services over wireless networks.

Another paper showing the results of an investment in free software by a public institution is “The Case of the University of Cádiz’s Free Software Office among Spanish
Universities”. The paper describes the work done by the Free Software Office of the University of Cadiz (Spain) since it was set up in 2004. One of the most important features of an institution attached to a university is its broad scope of action. Several kinds of initiatives have been developed in the fields of teaching, research, management, support of the development and dissemination of free software, and collaborations with external institutions.

The next paper, also related to RDI and free software, is “On Understanding how to Introduce an Innovation to an Open Source Project”. Like one of the earlier articles,
this paper was first published in FLOSS 2007. It describes a methodology for incorporating software engineering inventions into free software projects. This not only benefits researchers by allowing them to test their tools, methods, and process designs in real-life settings, but it also benefits the free software community by allowing them to apply the latest academic innovations to their projects. But introducing a new artefact into a community which has been working without it for a long time is no simple task. The steps to be taken to ensure successful adoption differ widely depending on the kind of innovation and on the structure and size of the community.

From another Free Software Conference, FLOSSIC 2007 we have selected the paper, “3D Distributed Rendering and Optimization using Free Software”. This paper
received an award as the best paper of the conference. It is the result of a research effort by two European institutions: the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (Spain) and the Software Competence Center at Hagenberg (Austria). The papers deals with a classical computing problem, image generation: in particular how 2D photorealistic images can be obtained from the abstract definition of a 3D scene. The use of free software tools and state-of-the-art distributed techniques and algorithms reduces the computational cost of the process. The free software tools used for distributed rendering optimization in this particular case were Yafrid and MagArRo, both developed at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha.

For our final article we have taken another interesting paper from FLOSS 2007, “Identifying Success and Tragedy of FLOSS Commons: a Preliminary Classification of
Sourceforge.net Projects” It researches why some free software projects succeed or fail (a tragedy). Although success or failure is very difficult to measure, the authors use collective action (CVS changes, stable versions released in the past year, downloads, etc) as criteria for classifying projects. They develop a different kind of classification of success or tragedy in projects, based on their number of developers, project size, and other metrics.

We would like to conclude our presentation by thanking the staff of Novática and UPGRADE for entrusting us with this special issue. And, of course, we would like to thank everyone whose work has contributed to the publication of this issue: authors, reviewers, translators and, in general, the whole community that makes Free Software and Knowledge a reality.

Useful References on Free Software

The following references, along with those included in the articles this monograph consists of, will help our readers to dig deeper into this field.

[1] <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/technology/29computer.html>.
[2] <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4602325.stm>.
[3] Decree 72/2003 on Measures for Advancing the Knowledge Society in Andalusia, of March 18, 2003 (BOJA 55, March 21, 2003).
[4] <http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/91463/0/programas/ordenador/pueden/>.
[5] <http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/repositorio/>.
[6] <http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf>.
[7] <http://cross.lincoln.ac.uk/floss2007/>.

Institutions Supporting Free Software

Free Software Foundation <http://fsf.org>.
Open Source Initiative <http://opensource.org>.
Cenatic <http://www.cenatic.es/>.
OSLUCA <http://www.uca.es/softwarelibre>.

News Sites

Slashdot <ttp://slashdot.org>.
Digg <ttp://digg.com>.
Blog de Ricardo Galli (in Spanish) <http://ricardogalli.com>.
Meneame (in Spanish) <http://meneame.net>.
Barrapunto (in Spanish) <http://barrapunto.com>.

Books

Eric S. Raymond. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary, O’Reilly, 2001, ISBN: 0596001088. <http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/>.
Richard M. Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, and Joshua Gay (Editor). Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman, Free Software Foundation, 2002, ISBN: 1-882114-98-1. <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf>.
Lawrence Lessig. Code 2.0. Basic Books, 2006. ISBN-13: 978–0–465–03914–2. <http://codev2.cc/>.
Eric Von Hippel. Democratizing Innovation. MIT Press, 2006. ISBN-13: 9780262002745. <http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm>.
Ron Goldman and Richard P. Gabriel. Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy. Morgan Kaufman/Elsevier, 2005, ISBN:
1-55860-889-3. <http://dreamsongs.com/IHE/>.
Peter Wayner. Free for All: How Linux and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans. Peter Wayner , 2000. ISBN 0-06-662050-3.
<http://www.rau-tu.unicamp.br/nou-rau/softwarelivre/document/?code=138>.
O’Reilly Open Books project. <http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/>.
Lawrence Rosen. Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law. Prentice Hall, 2004. ISBN-13: 978-0131487871. <http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm>.
Joseph Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott A. Hissam, and Karim R. Lakhani. Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software. ISBN-13: 978-0-262-06246-6.
MIT Press, 2006. <http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=10477&ttype=2>.
Karl Fogel. Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project. Karl Fogel, 2005. <http://producingoss.com/>.
Linux Torvalds and David Diamond. Just for Fun, The story of an accidental revolutionary. Harper-Collins, 2001. ISBN-13: 978-0066620725.
Glyn Moody. Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution. Perseus Books Group, 2002. ISBN-13: 978-0738206707.
A. Abella, M. A. Segovia. White book on Free Software in Spain (in Spanish). 2007. <http://www.libroblanco.com>.

Other Interesting Links

Economic and Game Theory: Against Intellectual Monopoly. <http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm>.
FLOSSIC 2007 Free documentation compilation. <http://flossic.loba.es/>.
Free Resources created for Free Software postgraduated courses at UOC (in Spanish). <http://www.uoc.edu/masters/esp/web/materiales_libres.html>.
European Interoperability Framework for pan-European eGovernment Services. European Communities, 2004. ISBN 92-894-8389-X. <http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/3761>.
How to Collaborate with the KDE project (in Spanish). <http://www.kdehispano.org/colaborar_KDE>.
Debian project. <http://www.debian.org>. Guiactiva: guide to creating Free Software Companies (in Spanish). CEIN, S.A., 2005. Legal deposit no.: NA 1078-2005. <http://www.cein.es/web/es/documentacion/ideas/2005/7831.php>.
Linux Knowledge Base and Tutorial. <http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkbat>.
Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc. An Introduction to Open Source Software. 2006. <http://oss.mri.co.jp/i2oss/download/en/text.pdf>.
Alessio Damato. Why The Future Of Science Must Be In Free Software. <http://scientificcomputing.net/debian/why.pdf>.

Last updated on March 19th, 2008

by the Editorial Team of Upgrade