Transcript Discovering, Modeling, and Reenacting Work Processes and Practices in Free/Open Source Software Development Projects Walt Scacchi, Chris Jensen, John Noll and Margaret Elliott Institute for.

Discovering, Modeling, and Reenacting Work Processes and
Practices in Free/Open Source
Software Development Projects
Walt Scacchi, Chris Jensen, John Noll and
Margaret Elliott
Institute for Software Research
University of California, Irvine
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Context
• Discovering hidden processes within a
large-scale, global, loosely-coordinated
open source software development
(OSSD) project.
– Thousands of project participants
– Developing, managing, and evolving over one
million knowledge-intensive artifacts
– Weakly coordinated by centralized authorities
– All data are open source
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Context
• Discover, model, (re-)enact, and repair
processes
• Discover process context, participant
roles, tools, resources, interdependencies
within and across projects over the Web
• Why?
– Enterprises don’t know their processes
– Process improvement, optimization, redesign
– Process interdiction w/ competitive advantage
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Overview
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Process discovery
Process modeling
Process re-enactment
Discussion
Conclusions
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Process discovery
• Participant observation (online, Web-based)
• Collection and annotation of participant
created/modified artifacts
– Objects of interaction
– How objects are situated in facilitating collaboration,
conflict, or conflict mitigation
• Tracking artifacts added or modified in response
to intra-community or inter-community dynamics
• Automated process data mining, categorization,
and composition
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Annotated chat transcript
• <CyrilB> Hello (Outsider Critique-1
• <CyrilB> Several images on the website seem to
be made with non-free Adobe software, I hope
I'm wrong: it is quite shocking. Does anybody
know more on the subject ?
• <CyrilB> We should avoid using non-free
software at all cost, am I wrong ? (Extreme
belief in free software (BIFS)-1)
• <CyrilB> Anyone awake in here ? Outsider
Critique-1)
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Current challenges
• Examining multiple OSSD processes
across multiple interrelated OSSD
projects.
– NetBeans.org, Mozilla.org, Apache.org,
BioBeans.org, Tigris.org, Java Tool
Community, etc.
• Leadership and control sharing within and
across individuals, work groups, and
projects as sources of coordination and
conflict.
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NetBeans.org Community
Ecosystem
JCP
Conflict
Coordination
Coordination
Conflict
Open
Office
NetBeans
Coordination
Coordination
Conflict
Coordination
W3C
Conflict
Conflict
Coordination
Conflict
Mozilla
Apache
Conflict
Coordination
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Boundary Objects of Interaction
– Development artifacts (“software informalisms”)
– Protocols
• HTTP, RPCs
– Shared data formats
• HTML, XML, CGI
– Community infrastructure tools
• Defect repositories (e.g. Bugzilla), Collaborative development
and communication tools (e.g. CVS, online chat, discussion
forums)
– Product infrastructure
• Plug-ins, Modules, Helper applications
– OSSD processes
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Direct Interaction
NetBeans
Coordination
Conflict
Tomcat
Mozilla
Apache
Conflict
Coordination
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Intra-community issues
• Collaboration
– Guidelines and policies
• Development tasks; style guidelines; public “floggings”
– Separation of concerns:
• architectural strategy (plug-ins) for collaborative success;
• freedom of extension/expression through contributed
source code--reduces involvement with socio-political
project issues
• Volunteer versus salaried developers--collaboration
breakdowns lead to product failures
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Intra-community issues
• Leadership and Control
– Accountability and expectations based on precedent and
volunteerism
– Transparency in decision-making
• Project “management” limited to coordinating roles
– Consent in decision-making
• Many contributors assume consensus decision-making, and
breakdowns arise when Sun asserts prerogative
• Conflict Resolution
– Not face-to-face
– Generally done in “public” via discourse transactions on
discussion forums, else turned over to community
governance board for resolution.
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Indirect process interactions across projects
NetBeans and Mozilla
developers collaborate on
spell-checking module,
NetBeans adopts Mozilla
super review process
NetBeans workarounds
for Mozilla shortcuts
Bugzilla, compliance with W3C standard
protocols/data formats, compressed HTTP
module support, Javascript support
Apache releases new
version of Tomcat
Browser-specific actions,
browser-error
workarounds,
Tomcat integration into
NetBeans, compliance
with W3C standards,
Apache Ant integration
into NetBeans
Changes in: HTTP, CCS,
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DOM, URI/URL, XML,
XHTML standards
Inter-community issues
• Communication and collaboration
– Bug reports and feature requests
– Patches submitted
– Java.net, Java Tools Community, and Java
Community Process
• Leadership and control across projects
– Sun NetBeans vs. IBM Eclipse
• Conflict resolution
– Mailing lists; Slashdot; Developer blogs
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Process modeling
• Rich pictures with hyperlinked Use Case
scenarios
• Directed and attributed resource flow
graph
• Process domain ontology
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Sun
Microsystems
Funds, support,
Promote
Java/Open
source
Rich Picture
Share
knowledge
and ensure
all
community
issues are
addressed
Download and
use free
software
Configur
e and
maintain
CVS
Ensure that the
netbeans community
is being run in a fair
and open manner
Community
Manager
respond to tech
download new
issues, unanswered
release
questions
Users
The Board
make decisions for
the community, on
high level
report bugs
Mailing Lists
Manage
website
Website
Tools
deploy
builds
Site
Administrator
Maintainer
SourceCast
CVS
decide features for the
project and merge
patches/bug fixes,
create module web page
Maintain a
project/
module,
manage a
group of
developers
Link to all Use Cases
IssueZilla
select feature to
develop, bug to fix,
download netbeans,
commit code
grant CVS
commit
privilege to
developers
Contribute to
community,
meet time
constraints for
the release
Link to Tools
Release
Manager
release proposal, release
updates, branch for current
release, release post
mortem, review release
candidates (2) & decide
final release
grant
access
CVS
Manager
Start new
release phase,
propose
schedule/plan
download
development
builds and test,
release Qbuilds
QA Team
Produce Qbuilds and
ensure
quality of
the
software
Developers/ Contributors
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Links to all Agents




Test Builds
The Q A team tests the latest nightly
builds every Friday
 Q A team ex ecutes a set of manual
tests on the builds as well as some
sanity checks
Tes t results are categorized as
Ğ B ug Types
User Constraint:
Ğ The tests depend on the manual
tests specification
System Constraint:
Ğ Not all bugs may be identif ied
Figure 2. A hyperli nk s el ecti on wit hin a ri ch hypermedia presentation that reveals a corresponding
use cas e.
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NetBeans
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Process re-enactment
• Generating executable or re-enactable process
specifications from ontology
• “Low-fidelity” process re-enactment support
– We don’t try to model everything
– Focus on resource flow patterns
– Accommodate gaps and detect inconsistencies in
process enactment models
• Re-enactments are interactive, navigational, and
grounded in artifacts, tools, roles, and resource
dependencies resulting from discovery and
modeling
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Formal model of a Netbeans.org process coded in
PML (excerpt)
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sequence Test {
action Execute automatic test scripts {
requires { Test scripts, release binaries }
provides { Test results }
tool { Automated test suite (xtest, others) }
agent { Sun ONE Studio QA team }
script { /* Executed off-site */ } }
action Execute manual test scripts {
requires { Release binaries }
provides { Test results }
tool { NetBeans IDE }
agent { users, developers, Sun ONE Studio QA team, Sun ONE Studio developers }
script { /* Executed off-site */ } }
iteration Update Issuezilla {
action Report issues to Issuezilla {
requires { Test results }
provides { Issuezilla entry }
tool { Web browser }
agent { users, developers, Sun ONE Studio QA team, Sun ONE Studio developers }
script {
<br><a href="http://www.netbeans.org/issues/">Navigate to Issuezilla </a>
<br><a href="http://www.netbeans.org/issues/query.cgi">Query Issuezilla </a>
<br><a href="http://www.netbeans.org/issues/enter_bug.cgi">Enter issue </a> } }
…
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PML validation analysis
S ummary of analysis for netbe ans_req_release.pml
Model size (source lines): 307
Actions: 36
Resources: 72
Actions neither requiring nor providing resources: 1
Resources required but not provided (potential inputs): 0
Resources provided but not required (potential outputs): 0
Miracles: 2
Black holes: 6
Transformations: 30
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PML analysis detail (excerpt)
home/jnoll/projects/peos//src/models/netbeans_req_release.pml:4:
action 'ReviewNetBeans' provides no resources
/home/jnoll/projects/peos//src/models/netbeans_req_release.pml:15:
action 'SetReleaseDate' provides but does not require ReleaseDate
/home/jnoll/projects/peos//src/models/netbeans_req_release.pml:22:
action 'ReviewNetBeansVisionStatmenet' provides no resources
/home/jnoll/projects/peos//src/models/netbeans_req_release.pml:33:
action 'ReviewUncompletedMilestonesFromPreviousRelease' provides but does not
require ProspectiveFeaturesForUpcomingRelease
/home/jnoll/projects/peos//src/models/netbeans_req_release.pml:42:
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Discussion
• Patterns of interaction about objects or artifacts
• Discovering and modeling socio-technical and
cultural evolution processes
• Validation strategies and tactics
• Process discovery, modeling, and re-enactment
implications
• MKIDS Integration
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Patterns of interaction about
boundary objects/artifacts
• Patterns can be detected and include:
– Integration of a tool or support for a technology created by another
community that create, update, or manage shared objects
– Defect detection and reduction
• Organizations contribute defect reports/patches detected in another
organization's tool or technology implementation
– Infrastructure evolution planning
• Research contributing to discussions of future/changes in tools and
technologies
– Discovery, assessment of effects on one’s own community
• These interactions give rise to additional opportunities for
coordination and conflict
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Socio-technical and cultural
evolution processes
• New processes under study
– Joining and contributing to a project in progress
– Role-task migration: from project periphery to center
– Alliance formation and community development
• Independent and autonomous project
communities can interlink via social networks
that manipulate objects of interaction
– Enables possible exponential growth of interacting
and interdependent community as socio-technical
interaction network
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Validation strategies and tactics
• Multi-mode modeling
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Collection and annotation of artifacts
Rich pictures with hyperlinked Use Case scenarios
Directed and attributed resource flow graph
Process domain ontology construction
• Simulated process re-enactment
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Process model language generated from ontology
PML compiled into re-enactment environment
Automated PML source validation
Simulated walkthrough of process
• Integration via ethnographic hypermedia
• Open to independent validation and interactive
traceability
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Discovery, modeling and
re-enactment implications
• Discovering, modeling, and understanding
“hidden” software processes in large OSSD
projects
– requires semi-automated process discovery
techniques
– must span multi-project ecosystem
• Discovered processes (still) need to be modeled
as narrative, hypermedia, and formal
computational models.
• Understanding large, aggregated Internet-based
projects requires process discovery, modeling
tools, re-enactment and validation techniques. 31
Where We’re Going
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MKIDS Integration
• Integration with USC efforts examined and
feasible
– Text analysis, categorization, summarization
– Process taxonomies
• Integration with OSU, Stanford, and CMU efforts
appear feasible
– Task analysis
– Process simulation and modeling
– Social network analysis
• Other MKIDS modeling and scheduling efforts
might be possible to integrate
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Conclusions
• We are examining processes within and across multiple
projects spanning multiple loosely-coupled communities
• Multiple project/organizational interaction may be
coordinative or conflictive
• Interaction is driven by ongoing synchronization and
stabilization of objects of interaction across project
communities
• Project interaction patterns are emerging, detectable,
modeled, and suitable for simulated re-enactment
• Discovering, modeling, validating, and re-enacting
hidden processes within and across multiple interdependent projects is challenging and important.
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References
• D.C. Atkinson, D.C. Weeks, and J. Noll. The Design of Evolutionary
Process Modeling Languages, Proc. 11th Asia-Pacific Software
Engineering Conf., Dec. 2004.
• D.C. Atkinson and J. Noll. Automated Validation and Verification of
Process Models, Proc. 7th Intern. IASTED Conf. Software
Engineering and Applications, November 2003.
• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Discovering, Modeling, and Reenacting
Open Source Software Development Processes, Institute for
Software Research, Submitted for publication, March 2004.
• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Process Modeling the Web Information
Infrastructure, Proc. 5th. Software Process Simulation and
Modeling Workshop, Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2004.
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References
• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Data Mining for Software Process
Discovery in Open Source Software Development Communities,
Proc. Workshop on Mining Software Repositories, 96-100,
Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2004.
• C. Jensen and W. Scacchi, Collaboration, Leadership, Control, and
Conflict Negotiation in the NetBeans.org Community, Proc. 4th.
Workshop on Open Source Software Engineering, 48-52,
Edinburgh, Scotland, May 2004.
• W. Scacchi, Socio-Technical Interaction Networks in Free/Open
Source Software Development Processes, revised version to
appear in S.T. Acuña and N. Juristo (eds.), Peopleware and the
Software Process, World Scientific Press, 2004.
• W. Scacchi, C. Jensen, J. Noll and M. Elliott, Multi-Modal Modeling
of Open Source Software Requirements Processes, submitted for
publication, September 2004.
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Acknowledgements
• Project collaborators:
– Darren Atkinson, Santa Clara University
– Margaret Ellliot, Chris Jensen, UCI-ISR
– Mark Ackerman, UMichigan, Ann Arbor
– Les Gasser, UIUC
• Funding support (no endorsement implied):
– National Science Foundation #0083075,
#0205679, #0205724, and #0350754.
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