Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Collaborative Software Design & Development

Dewayne E Perry ENS 623A Office Hours: T/Th 10:00-11:00 perry @ ece.utexas.edu www.ece.utexas.edu/~perry/education/382V-s08/ © 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Today What the course is about  Introductions Â

ªUs ªYou

Course mechanics  What are collaborative technologies  The landscape of open source software development  Global Software Development Â

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Introductions Â

Professors

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Students

ªDewayne E Perry

ªBackground ªResearch/career interest ªGoal for class

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Course Goals Â

Identify social, technical and domain challenges in supporting groups with technology & how to overcome them

Examine OSS as an important phenomenon on its own  Examine Global Software Development phenomenon  Provide experience in identifying research questions and designing research Â

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Provide experience in going from observation to design in a team context

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Course Requirements Â

Class participation (20%) ªPreparation ªDiscussion

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Short papers & class presentations (35%)

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Term project (45%)

ª2 presentations per class ªPerhaps in pairs covering sets of papers

ª9 teams of 3 people each (=27 students) ªProject TBD

¾ 1-page individual proposal ¾ Progress report & lit review ¾ Presentation – after finished with individual papers ¾ Project paper due last day of class

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Course Topics Â

Interweave with discussions of OSS as task domain with social science background on nature of groups, communities, coordination and communication ªGeneral Introduction ªCollaboration

¾ Teamwork –virtual and real ¾ Behavior in groups ¾ Uncertainty & coordination

ªOpen source development

¾ OSS landscape ¾ Problems of motivation & coordination ¾ Developing newcomers

ªGlobal software development

¾ Formal and informal collaboration ¾ New opportunities

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Course Schedule - Approximately Weeks 1-4 – Introduction and Overview (Me) Â Weeks 5-11 – Paper Presentations (You) Â Weeks 12-14 – Project Presentations (You) and Wrap-up (Me) Â

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Syllabus ready by Thursday – watch the class web page on my website.

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

What is CSCW Â

Building information systems that help groups of people accomplish their goals ªApplying knowledge from

¾ Individual cognition and motivation ¾ Small group research ¾ Organizational behavior ¾ Task domains ¾ Computer science ¾ Telecommunications ¾ Design

ªBut

¾ The reference disciplines are inadequate to the task ¾ The practitioners don't look deeply enough

Understanding collaboration and the impact of potential supporting technology  Developing the underlying science and technology

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© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Why Study CSCW Â

Utility

ªImportance of groups ªImportance of communications as an integral part of computing systems ªInterpersonal computing is a growth area in computer systems ªGroups are important, but not perfect ¾ Unaided groups don't live up to their potential ¾ Current technology constrains what groups can do

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Science

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These goals require an interdisciplinary enterprise

ªLewin: Nothing is as practical as a good theory ªReversed: Nothing generates theory as a well as useful application ªMalone: Challenge is to develop general theories of coordination that transcend type of actor (e.g., human or computational)

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

The task is crucial Â

What is needed for group support is strongly influenced by the domain

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Broad needs

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Detailed, task specific needs

ª Synchronous vs. asynchronous ª Conceptual vs. artifact

ª Architectural design ª Software design ª Software development ª Co-authored paper/documentation

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

What Is Open Source? Â

Commercial software

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Copyleft

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Open source is form of licensing

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A process of collaborative creation

ªRelease binaries only ªProtect source with copyright ªSubversive use of copyright law ªGuarantees right to distribute ªFree redistribution ªSource code ªDerived works

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Why the Interest in Open Source? Â

Some large, visible, hugely successful projects ªLinux ªApache ªMozilla, Thunderbird, Firefox

Complete open source web platform  Open source software runs the internet Â

ªbind ªsendmail

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Explosion of Open Source Projects Â

SourceForge

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Savannah

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OSDir

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How far will this go?

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Microsoft views OSS as #1 threat

ª105,764 projects; 1,132,505 users (9/1/05) ª2464 projects; 37517 users ªDirectory only, not hosting environment ª“only lists sufficiently developed and stable open source applications that are ready for deployment” ª849 downloads available ªAll software will be developed this way (FSF) ªA few niches, primarily infrastructure, tools

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Just Software? Oxford English Dictionary  Wikipedia  MIT OpenCourseWare  Design problems: Thinkcycle  What else? Â

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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Collaborative Software Design & Development

Lecture 1

Global Software Development OSS often geographically distributed  Company specific often geographically distributed Â

ªEconomic reasons ªLegal reasons ªLogical reasons

Development organizational models  Informal vs formal interactions Â

ªTime zone issues ªGeographical issues

Round the clock development  Outsourcing Â

© 2005, Dewayne E Perry

EE 382V – Spring 2008

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