The need for effort estimation models for open source software projects

ABSTRACT

Open source software(OSS), be it products or tools, are being adopted at a fairly rapid pace in commercial organizations. In fact many firms such as IBM and Sun are even 'opening' up their once proprietary software products and making the source code available. This phenomenon may have a profound effect on the various software engineering methodologies and practices as well as project management activities. Given the difficulty in managing resources in closed source projects, planning and delivery for OSS projects will be an even bigger challenge. In this position paper, we describe the need for new effort estimation models for the development of OSS projects and how this will be required for future project management activities. We outline some of the guidelines to build these cost estimation models and some issues that arise in the verification and validation of these cost models.

REFERENCES

• 1: Barry W. Boehm, Software Engineering Economics, Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1981
• 2: Joseph Feller , Brian Fitzgerald, Understanding open source software development, Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, 2002
• 3: Lerner, J., Tirole, J. (2002). "Some Simple Economics of Open Source," Journal of Industrial Economics, 52, 197--234
• 4: Eric S. Raymond , Tim O'Reilly, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA, 1999
• 5: "IBM puts cash behind Linux push", http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4276287.stm downloaded on 2/19/2005.
• 6: "Star Office released in Largest Open Source Project", http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-10-13-002-21-NW-DT-SW D downloaded on 2/19/2005
• 7: "Apple releases source code for Darwin 7.0" http://www.newsforge.com/os/03/10/28/2247203.shtml?tid=6&tid=82&tid=94 downloaded on 2/19/2005
• 8: "IBM to release Java Database to Open-Source Group" http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1630856,00.asp, downloaded on 2/19/2005
• 9: Chris Jensen , Walt Scacchi, Collaboration, Leadership, Control, and Conflict Negotiation and the Netbeans.org Open Source Software Development Community, Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'05) - Track 7, p.196.2, January 03-06, 2005 [doi>10.1109/HICSS.2005.147]
• 10: Jensen, C and Scacchi, W. "Data Mining for Software Process Discovery in Open Source Software Development Communities," Proc. Workshop on Mining Software Repositories, 96--100, Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2004
• 11: Gasser, L. Scacchi, W., G. Ripoche, and B. Penne "Understanding Continuous Design in F/OSS Projects," 16th Intern. Conf. Software & Systems Engineering and their Applications, Paris, December 2003.
• 12: W. R. Park and D. E. Jackson, Cost Engineering Analysis: A Guide to Economic Evaluation of Engineering Projects, John Wiley, New York, 1984.
• 13: Pankaj Jalote, An integrated approach to software engineering, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., New York, NY, 1991
• 14: Hu, Qing, R. Plant and David Hertz, "Software Cost Estimation Using Economic Production Models," Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 143--163, Summer 1998
• 15: Arora, A., Arunachalam, V. S., Asundi, J. M., and Fernandes, R., "The Indian Software Services Industry," Research Policy (30) 8, 2001, pp. 1267--1287

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.7 Distribution, Maintenance, and Enhancement

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.8 Metrics

General Terms:
Design, Documentation

Keywords:
effort estimation, maintenance, open source software, project management