Kapil Singi, Vikrant Kaulgud, R. P. Jagadeesh Chandra Bose, Sanjay Podder
The software development life cycle (SDLC) starts with business and functional specifications signed with a client. In addition to this, the specifications also capture policy / procedure / contractual / regulatory / legislation / standard compliances with respect to a given client industry. The SDLC must adhere to service level agreements (SLAs) while being compliant to development activities, processes, tools, frameworks, and reuse of open-source software components. In today's world, global software development happens across geographically distributed (autonomous) teams consuming extraordinary amounts of open source components drawn from a variety of disparate sources. Although this is helping organizations deal with technical and economic challenges, it is also increasing unintended risks, e.g., use of a non-complaint license software might lead to copyright issues and litigations, use of a library with vulnerabilities pose security risks etc. Mitigation of such risks and remedial measures is a challenge due to lack of visibility and transparency of activities across these distributed teams as they mostly operate in silos. We believe a unified model that non-invasively monitors and analyzes the activities of distributed teams will help a long way in building software that adhere to various compliances. In this paper, we propose a decentralized CAG - Compliance Adherence and Governance framework using blockchain technologies. Our framework (i) enables the capturing of required data points based on compliance specifications, (ii) analyzes the events for non-conformant behavior through smart contracts, (iii) provides real-time alerts, and (iv) records and maintains an immutable audit trail of various activities.
Asher Trockman, Rijnard van Tonder, Bogdan Vasilescu
Cryptocurrencies have a significant open source development presence on GitHub. This presents a unique opportunity to observe their related developer effort and software growth. Individual cryptocurrency prices are partly driven by attractiveness, and we hypothesize that high-quality, actively-developed software is one of its influences. Thus, we report on a study of a panel data set containing nearly a year of daily observations of development activity, popularity, and market capitalization for over two hundred open source cryptocurrencies. We find that open source project popularity is associated with higher market capitalization, though development activity and quality assurance practices are insignificant variables in our models. Using Granger causality tests, we find no compelling evidence for a dynamic relation between market capitalization and metrics such as daily stars, forks, watchers, commits, contributors, and lines of code changed.
Decentralization is heralded as the most important technological design aspect of distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). In this chapter we’ll analyze the concept of decentralization, with the goal to understand the social, legal, and economic forces that produce more or less decentralized techno-social systems. We first give an overview of decentralization as a political ideology and as an ideal and natural endpoint in the development of digital technologies. We then move beyond this discourse and treat decentralization, its extent, its mode, and the systems which it can refer to as the products of particular economic, political, and social dynamics around and within these techno-social systems. We then point at the concrete forces that shape the actual degree of (de)centralization. Through this, we show that the extent to which a techno-social system is (de)centralized at any given moment should not be measured by its distance from an ideological ideal of total decentralization but should be seen as the sum of all the social, economic, political, and legal forces that impact a techno-social system.
Software sustainability is a systematic challenge that impacts broad segments of software systems. Software codebases must evolve overtime to address changing contexts and adapt to the flux in middlewares and platforms. In the process, it accumulates arbitrary complexities and its maintenance becomes progressively difficult.
Current sustainability approaches focus on the symptoms and tend to be reactive in nature, and ignore the fundamental incentive structures that drive decision-making processes. Moreover, contemporary approaches are insensitive to the uniqueness of each software project context and operate on the assumption that sustainability measurements are universally applicable to the majority of software systems.
This paper introduces a fundamentally novel peer-driven approach to managing software sustainability. The methodology ensures that software teams can define their own sustainability measures that adequately address the unique context of their project and its priorities. These measures are dynamically defined by the project peers to ensure their applicability as the project context evolves. Finally, the paper introduces Susereum, a blockchain platform that materializes the methodology and establishes novel incentive structures to systematically promote software sustainability throughout the project lifecycle.
Background: The application of the blockchain technology has shown promises in various areas, such as smart-contracts, Internet of Things, land registry management, identity management, etc. Although Github currently hosts more than three thousand active blockchain software (BCS) projects, a few software engineering research has been conducted on their software engineering practices. Aims: To bridge this gap, we aim to carry out the first formal survey to explore the software engineering practices including requirement analysis, task assignment, testing, and verification of blockchain software projects. Method: We sent an online survey to 1,604 active BCS developers identified via mining the Github repositories of 145 popular BCS projects. The survey received 156 responses that met our criteria for analysis. Results: We found that code review and unit testing are the two most effective software development practices among BCS developers. The results suggest that the requirements of BCS projects are mostly identified and selected by community discussion and project owners which is different from requirement collection of general OSS projects. The results also reveal that the development tasks in BCS projects are primarily assigned on voluntary basis, which is the usual task assignment practice for OSS projects. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that standard software engineering methods including testing and security best practices need to be adapted with more seriousness to address unique characteristics of blockchain and mitigate potential threats.
D S Pradeepkumar, Kapil Singi, Vikrant Kaulgud, Sanjay Podder
Blockchain technology becomes the key solution to provide trust and security without any need for a central supervisory authority to validate the transactions. By now, it plays a key role in the digital transformation of several processes and industries with varying application use cases. To promote the wide adoption of blockchain technology we need mechanisms to identify the digitizability level of the given regulations to smart contracts and mechanisms to specify which blockchain technology is best suitable for the given regulations. In this work, we propose a modeling approach that supports the automated analysis of human-readable regulation representations by suggesting how much percentage of regulation is digitizable and the suitable blockchain environment to design the application. We identify smart contract components that correspond to real-world entities and its pertaining clauses and its digitizability property. With selected examples, we explore this capability and discuss our future research directions on smart contract generation according to the recommended environment.
Kapil Singi, D S Pradeepkumar, Vikrant Kaulgud, Sanjay Podder
In this extended abstract, we propose a conceptual framework that leverages distributed ledger technology and smart contracts to create a decentralized system to capture the occurrence of interesting development activities (e.g., a development build) and associated contextual data, and automatically audit and evaluate compliance to governance policies. Our hypothesis is that such a framework will facilitate easier sharing of information across all participants of a distributed development team, compliance evaluation and early mitigation actions, leading to greater visibility and compliance. Currently, the proof of concept we are working on is focused on sharing and compliance evaluation of the open-source components used in software development.
Valentina Lenarduzzi, Maria Ilaria Lunesu, Michele Marchesi, Roberto Tonelli
We present an application of Blockchain technology and Smart Contracts to the management of Agile projects, using Scrum or Lean-Kanban processes. In our application the duties of the Product Owner for certifying the correctness of the outcomes are delegated to one or more Smart Contracts deployed on the Ethereum Blockchain and written in Solidity. An agreement with the Customer can also allow the Smart Contracts to automatically enable payments, to introduce penalties or grants on the basis of the outcome. Product Owner duties and work can thus be relieved allowing to allocate resources on more profitable and productive tasks. Other possibilities are examined as well.
Michel Rauchs, Andrew Glidden, Brian Gordon, Gina Pieters · 8 authors
The DLT ecosystem is plagued with the use of incomplete and inconsistent definitions and a lack of standardised terminology, creating a needlessly complicated landscape for everyone from experienced policymakers and developers to individuals venturing into the field for the first time. This study sets out to contribute to international discussions to create a shared, common language around DLT systems to clarify terminology and concepts.
Open access
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Open Source Software Innovations
Transportation and Mobility Innovations
Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
Ying‐Ying Hsieh, Jean‐Philippe Vergne, Philip C. Anderson, Karim R. Lakhani · 5 authors
Bitcoin represents the first real-world implementation of a “decentralized autonomous organization” (DAO) and offers a new paradigm for organization design. Imagine working for a global business organization whose routine tasks are powered by a software protocol instead of being governed by managers and employees. Task assignments and rewards are randomized by the algorithm. Information is not channeled through a hierarchy but recorded transparently and securely on an immutable public ledger called “blockchain.” Further, the organization decides on design and strategy changes through a democratic voting process involving a previously unseen class of stakeholders called “miners.” Agreements need to be reached at the organizational level for any proposed protocol changes to be approved and activated. How do DAOs solve the universal problem of organizing with such novel solutions? What are the implications? We use Bitcoin as an example to shed light on how a DAO works in the cryptocurrency industry, where it provides a peer-to-peer, decentralized, and disintermediated payment system that can compete against traditional financial institutions. We also invited commentaries from renowned organization scholars to share their views on this intriguing phenomenon.
Roger Maull, Phil Godsiff, Catherine Mulligan, Alan Brown · 5 authors
Abstract Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are rewriting conventional notions of business transacting, creating fresh opportunities for value creation and capture. Using qualitative interview data as a primary resource, the proposed five‐point model synthesizes these possibilities, demonstrating how they may lead to “disruptive innovation.” A further conceptual model is subsequently provided with a view to assisting future problem solving in the area.
Kevin O’Leary, Philip O’Reilly, Joseph Feller, Rob Gleasure · 6 authors
Today, many multi-national organisations operate in a dispersed geographical environment. Teams consisting of members from around the globe can be assembled on an as-needed basis. However, this can prove to be a complex managerial task. Individuals, who believe that their efforts are not being effectively monitored by upper management, lose their motivation to fully contribute to the best of their abilities as they do not believe there is any correlation between the effort they exert and the reward they receive. With low levels of intrinsic involvement among employees, a lack of task visibility from upper management and limited social interaction among group members, many organisations struggle to combat the issue of social loafing in cross functional working groups. Blockchain technology, widely acknowledged as enabling openness, can facilitate the development of an immutable, transparent, secure and verifiable application for capturing individuals Intellectual Property as they work. This would motivate employees to more openly contribute to group work, safe in the knowledge that their contribution will be recognised, enabling management to maintain a high level of task visibility over their employees work without requiring their physical presence.
Simone Porru, Andrea Pinna, Michele Marchesi, Roberto Tonelli
The Blockchain technology is reshaping finance, economy, money to the extent that its disruptive power is compared to that of the Internet and the Web in their early days. As a result, all the software development revolving around the Blockchain technology is growing at a staggering rate. In this paper, we acknowledge the need for software engineers to devise specialized tools and techniques for blockchain-oriented software development. From current challenges concerning the definition of new professional roles, demanding testing activities and novel tools for software architecture, we take a step forward by proposing new directions on the basis of a curate corpus of blockchain-oriented software repositories, detected by exploiting the information enclosed in the 2016 Moody's Blockchain Report and teh market capitalization of cryptocurrencies. Ensuring effective testing activities, enhancing collaboration in large teams, and facilitating the development of smart contracts all appear as key factors in the future of blockchain-oriented software development.
Jan 1, 2017·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Gianluca Miscione, Rafael Ziolkowski, Liudmila Zavolokina, Gerhard Schwabe
The blockchain technology offers a novel mode of distributed authentication, which does not depend on a central authority. We consider this novelty against established governance modes. We illustrate our argument by paying special attention to blockchain-based authentication functions in the empirical domain of land registries across the world. Based on interviews with representatives from organizations deploying blockchain, and con-tent analysis of related grey literature, we discuss established governance idealtypes against what the rivalry that cryptocurrencies and blockchains bring to digital settings. After referring to market, hierarchy, network, and bazaar, we conclude outlining the prospects of a different, blockchain-related governance mode called -˜tribal’ that better captures the -˜togetherness’ which rivalry originates.
Making a series of small bets rather than one large gamble is at the core of experimentation, thereby scaling down what is at stake. Less effortful and more specific behaviors are more likely to be followed through, so making things tangible increases your odds of translating intentions into actions. Small wins mark progress and offer proof-of-concept, opportunities for feedback, and opportunities for joining development efforts.
Matthias Stuermer, Gabriel Abu-Tayeh, Thomas Myrach
The modern age has heralded a shift from the industrial society, in which natural resources are crucial input factors for the economy, towards a knowledge society. To date, sustainability literature has treated knowledge-and in particular digital artifacts-mainly as a means to the end of achieving sustainable development. In this conceptual paper, we argue that digital artifacts themselves ought also to be considered as resources, which also need to be sustainable. While over-consumption is a problem facing natural resources, with sustainable digital artifacts, underproduction, and underuse are the biggest challenges. In our view, the sustainability of digital artifacts improves their potential impact on sustainable development. A theoretical foundation for digital artifacts and their ecosystem allows us to present the relevant research on digital information, knowledge management, digital goods, and innovation literature. Based on these insights, we propose ten basic conditions for sustainable digital artifacts and their ecosystem to ensure that they provide the greatest possible benefit for sustainable development. We then apply those characteristics to four exemplary cases: Linux kernel development, Bitcoin cryptocurrency, the Wikipedia project, and the Linking Open Drug Data repositories. The paper concludes with a research agenda identifying topics for sustainability scholars and information systems academics, as well as practitioners. A number of suggestions for future studies on digital sustainability are also put forward.
The rapid development of the blockchain technology and its various applications has rendered it important to understand the guidelines for adopting it. The comparative analysis method is used to analyze different dimensions of the maturity model, which is mainly based on the commonly used capability maturity model. The blockchain maturity model and its adoption process have been discussed and presented. This study serves as a guide to institutions to make blockchain adoption decisions more systematically.
Web2 and the evolving vision of Web3 have a great effect on facilitation of information sharing, information aggregation, interoperability, user-centered design, collaboration on the World Wide Web, and crowd-centered services. New concept of Web is the intuition that drives crowdsourcing, crowd servicing, and crowd computing. With crowdsourcing emergence people get motivated to work through internet without being limited by time or geographical location. On the other hand employers could have their jobs done faster and cheaper. This paper is going to introduce an innovative approach for Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) crowdsourcing marketplace. In current AMT marketplace, workers especially new ones need to qualify themselves for each requester that has submitted Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) in AMT, and there is lack of shared reputation system; some workers may cheat on tasks in order to maximize their income, as a result requesters are uncertain of the quality of results, so they offer lower rewards and consequently qualified workers leave the marketplace.
Open source software development (OSSD) is a community-oriented, network-centric approach to building complex software systems. OSSD projects are typically organized as virtual enterprises that lack an explicit managerial regime to control and coordinate decentralized project work. However, a growing number of OSSD projects are developing, delivering, and supporting large-scale software systems that are displacing proprietary software alternatives. Recent empirical studies of OSSD projects reveal that OSS developers often self-organize into organizational forms we characterize as evolving socio-technical interaction networks (STINs). These STINs emerge in ways that effectively control semi-autonomous OSS developers and coordinate project activities to produce reliable and adaptive software systems. In this paper, we examine how practices and processes enable and govern decentralized organizations like OSSD projects when coalesced and configured as contingent, socio-technical interaction networks. In so doing, we draw on results from two ongoing case studies of leadership and governance activities and elements in a small and a large OSSD project.