Re: Open Source Software Engineering

Roy T. Fielding (fielding@kiwi.ICS.UCI.EDU)
Fri, 08 Oct 1999 15:50:05 -0700


>There have been numerous musings on the business and anthropology of open
>source. Is anyone aware of readings that address the actual software
>engineering issues?

What do you mean by "actual" software engineering issues? Do you mean
the raw details like how to set up a collaborative development environment?
Or just the technical issues, like how to do architectural design such that
independent volunteers can work on separate features without killing each
other? Or do you also include the social/management issues of conflict
resolution among volunteers?

I have written a few overview articles, but nothing detailed enough
(due to space and time limitations) to really help someone starting
from scratch. Yet another thing waiting for the dissertation to be done.

http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/

has a few references. The CACM and IEEE Internet Computing articles
are the relevant ones, but they are also copyright protected, so you'll
have to get them from the online ACM or IEEE digital libraries.

....Roy