Analysing Open Source Software in Terms of Its Characteristics and Establishing New Paradigms

Full Text (PDF, 483KB), PP.17-25

Views: 0 Downloads: 0

Author(s)

Harmaninder J. S. Sidhu 1,* Sawtantar S. Khurmi 2

1. Desh Bhagat University/Department of Computer Science, Mandi Gobindgarh, 147301, India

2. Yadavindra College of Engineering, Talwandi Sabo, 151302, Bathinda, India

* Corresponding author.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijitcs.2017.07.02

Received: 24 Aug. 2016 / Revised: 23 Dec. 2016 / Accepted: 11 Mar. 2017 / Published: 8 Jul. 2017

Index Terms

Open source software (OSS)\Free and open source software (FOSS), FOSS Characteristics, FOSS Attributes, FOSS Empirical Study/Analysis, FOSS Deployability, FOSS Usability

Abstract

The world that we see and in which we live is driven by open source platforms. Whether we talk about Linux and Apache or Drupal and Joomla (all are open source platforms), right from the beginning the open source technology has always been influencing. If we go online and try to find out open source link, we find that it is difficult to find a site/online application without an open source connection. This paper examines Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in an empirical setup in terms of its major characteristics i.e. Deployability and Usability. These two characteristics of FOSS are ex-tremely important from point of view of its comparison with proprietary software. The different attributes of FOSS were identified in the literature and were made part of the present study to carry out empirical analysis of FOSS. Apart from this a number of attributes were also included in this empirical study those were agreed upon by the participants while carrying out pilot study. This paper throws light on the experience of different kinds of users associated with FOSS. The statistical analysis using fisher's exact test was used to conclude the dependability of important characteristics of FOSS on each other.

Cite This Paper

Harmaninder J. S. Sidhu, Sawtantar S. Khurmi, "Analysing Open Source Software in Terms of Its Characteristics and Establishing New Paradigms", International Journal of Information Technology and Computer Science(IJITCS), Vol.9, No.7, pp.17-25, 2017. DOI:10.5815/ijitcs.2017.07.02

Reference

[1]Scacchi, W. (2013). Understanding open source software evolution [Online] Available: http://www.ics.uci.edu/ ~wscacchi/Papers/New/Understanding-OSS-Evolution.pdf

[2]Bollier, D. (1999). The power of openness. Why citizens, education, government and business should care about the coming revolution in open source code software. Retrieved from http://www.opencode.org/h2o/

[3]298.Vernudόttir, H. B. (2010). The Use of Free and Open Source Software by Icelandic Software Devel-opers. Research report. B.Sc. Computer Science. Springler, New York.

[4]J. A. (2014, August 13). Red Crackle. Retrieved February 23, 2017, from http://redcrackle.com/blog/7-interesting-facts-about-open-source-software.

[5]S. J. (2010, January 6). Open Source, Open Development, Open Innovation Workshop. OSS Watch, 1, 3. Retrieved February 23, 2017, from http://oss-watch.ac.uk/ newslet-ters/january2010.

[6]Rothfuss, G. (2002). A framework for Open Source pro-jects. Master Thesis in Computer Science, University of Zurich, Department of Information Technology.

[7]Laurent, A. M. S. (2008). Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing. O'Reilly Media. p. 4. ISBN 9780596553951.

[8]Lee, S. H. (1999). Open source software licensing. Avail-able: cyber.law. harvard.edu/openlaw/ gpl.pdf.

[9]Alspaugh, T. A., Asuncion, H. U. and Scacchi, W. (2012). Software licenses, open source components, and open ar-chitectures. In: Aligning Enterprise, System, and Software Architectures (Eds. I. Mistr´ık, A. Tang, et al.,) IGI Global, pp 58–7.

[10]Raza, A. and Capretz, L. F. (2010). Contributors ‘prefer-ence in open source software usability: an empirical study. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applica-tions, 1(2): 10-17.

[11]Andreasen, M. S., Nielsen, H. V., Schrøder, S. O. and Stage, J. (2006). Usability in open source software devel-opment: opinions and practice. Information technology and control. 35(3A).

[12]Nichols, D. M. and Twidale, M. B. (2003). The Usability of Open Source Software. First Monday. 8(1). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_1/nichols/ in-dex.html.

[13]Hall, J. (2014). Usability themes in open source software. In Scientific and Technical Communication (STC) Plan C.

[14]Sanga C. (2010). A technique for the evaluation of free and open source e-earning systems. Ph.D. Thesis, University of the Western Cape.

[15]Seffah, A., Kececi, N. and Donyaee, M. (2001). QUIM: A Framework for Quantifying Usability Metrics in Software Quality Models. Second Asia-Pacific Conference on Quality Software (APAQS'01). p. 0311.