A group of US academics has launched a three-year
research project to investigate how open source software is built
by developers.
The researchers from the University of California Davis campus
have secured a $750,000 (£395,000) grant from the US National
Science Foundation to support the project.
The team will focus on the Apache Web server, the PostgreSQL
database and the Python scripting language. They intend to collect
information from message boards, bug reports and e-mail discussion
groups to build up a picture of how design teams organise
themselves and interact with each other.
The researchers believe that the way design teams are organised
will be reflected in the software they create, while the nature of
the software may also influence how teams of programmers get
together.
UC Davis computer science professor Premkumar Devanbu said open
source software defied conventional wisdom about collaborative
projects, with work moving at the speed of the fastest member of
the development team rather than being held back by the pace of the
slowest.
Vote for your IT greats
Who have been the most influential people in IT in the past 40
years? The greatest organisations? The best hardware and software
technologies? As part of Computer Weekly’s 40th anniversary
celebrations, we are asking our readers who and what has really
made a difference?
Vote now at:
www.computerweekly.com/ITgreats