Architectural Health of Software Ecosystems: A Practice-Based Evaluation Framework

Enviado por hugo.chaves em seg, 24/10/2022 - 17:12

Nome completo do aluno

Simone da Silva Amorim

Título do trabalho

Resumo do trabalho

Software ecosystems have emerged as an important technological environment where
a common software platform and its applications are developed and maintained by a
community. This community is composed of internal and external members working to
satisfy their needs. Many ecosystems have evolved for years and achieve success as Apple,
Facebook, Android, KDE, Hadoop, and others. They have achieved an effective way of
developing products with greater sharing of costs, quality, and innovation when compared
to traditional software engineering environments.
Software ecosystems have called the attention of the researchers to study how they
were formed, developed, and survived for a long time. Many studies have been directed
to investigate the concept of “Health” which represents its ability to evolve and succeed
over time. Health indicators were defined to obtain a picture of an ecosystem and to
know how they are working. There is also a set of metrics proposed to know the real
state of the health of a software ecosystem. Existing studies focus on the definition and
measurement of health indicators without addressing other perspectives for studying the
health of ecosystems.
Regarding the perspective of software architecture, we did not find studies on the
intersection between software architecture and ecosystem health. Software architecture
plays a crucial role in the operation of ecosystems. Several authors highlight its impor-
tance in different aspects such as attributes of quality, variability, and design challenges.
However, the influences of software architecture on the health of ecosystems have not
been explored by now. Our proposal introduces the concept of Architectural Health of
Software Ecosystems which covers parts of ecosystem health influenced by architectural
issues.
Thus, to assess the architectural health of software ecosystems, in this work, we
propose a framework Health Evaluation for Software Ecosystems/Software Architecture
(HEVAL/SA). HEVAL/SA was defined considering the architectural practices adopted
those influence health indicators in a software ecosystem. The evaluation of these prac-
tices will indicate a state for the health of the ecosystem. In addition, we validate
HEVAL/SA through case studies in real-world open source software ecosystems. The
results of HEVAL/SA can help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the architec-
tural practices adopted by them. The framework will also help to assess the “ weight ”
of the software architecture on the health of ecosystems