Paper Info
Title
Understanding the role of licenses and evolution in open architecture software ecosystems
Abstract
The role of software ecosystems in the development and evolution of open architecture systems whose components are subject to different licenses has received insufficient consideration. Such systems are composed of components potentially under two or more licenses, open source or proprietary or both, in an architecture in which evolution can occur by evolving existing components, replacing them, or refactoring. The software licenses of the components both facilitate and constrain the system's ecosystem and its evolution, and the licenses' rights and obligations are crucial in producing an acceptable system. Consequently, software component licenses and the architectural composition of a system help to better define the software ecosystem niche in which a given system lies. Understanding and describing software ecosystem niches for open architecture systems is a key contribution of this work. An example open architecture software system that articulates different niches is employed to this end. We examine how the architecture and software component licenses of a composed system at design time, build time, and run time help determine the system's software ecosystem niche and provide insight and guidance for identifying and selecting potential evolutionary paths of system, architecture, and niches.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1016/j.jss.2012.03.033
Journal of Systems and Software
Keywords
Field
DocType
different licenses,acceptable system,software ecosystem niche,open architecture software ecosystem,software licenses,software ecosystem,open architecture system,software component licenses,example open architecture software,system help,open source,software architecture,software engineering,ecosystems,software evolution
Systems engineering,Software engineering,Computer science,Software architecture description,Software system,Component-based software engineering,Resource-oriented architecture,Software architecture,Reference architecture,Software evolution,Software ecosystem
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
85
7
0164-1212
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
23
0.92
24
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Walt Scacchi11717430.01
Thomas A. Alspaugh226621.31