________________________________________ From: Rob Weir [robw...@apache.org] Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2013 3:39 AM To: dev@openoffice.apache.org; Ryan, Benjamin Subject: Re: Case Study on Open Office
On Thu, Jan 31, 2013 at 5:15 PM, Ryan, Benjamin <8...@trinitylismore.nsw.edu.au> wrote: > Hello Open Office Developers sorry to bother you but I am in need of some help > > I am doing a school Assignment (Case Study) on a particular Software Solution > and I chose to do "Open Office" but i need to find some answer to these > questions. > > > > 1. Identify the software development approaches used in the development of > the Software? e.g Open office > I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for here. A "development approach" comprises many factors, from choice of design methodologies, approaches to organization, decision making licensing and business models, etc. Apache OpenOffice is community-developed open source software. Open source software is software where the program, as well as the source code for the program, is made available to users free of charge. Users not only can use the software, but they can make copies of it and give it to their friends. They can even modify the software and distribute their own versions of it, for free or at any price they chose. OpenOffice is developed by a community of volunteers within the Apache Software Foundation, a non-profit foundation with the mission of providing free, open source software to the public. As you can see, the underlying motivation and organization of the project is different than the typical for-profit, corporate-run software publisher. But at the level of the actual software development, and the methodologies used, it is not very different than commercial development. I'd describe what we do as generally an agile process with a flat organizational hierarchy guided by set of shared beliefs sometimes called "The Apache Way". You can read more about this here: http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html > 2. Discuss the appropriateness of the approaches used.Why was this approach > chosen? > Since the work is done by volunteers, a top-down hierarchical approach cannot work. No one can order a volunteer to do something. It must be something they want to do, something that they are interested it and enjoy doing. This is not the only way that open source software can be developed. Other approach include: a) Having a for-profit corporation control the project, allowing volunteers to contribute, but control is firmly with the corporation. b) Having a "benevolent dictator" who makes the major decisions. c) Having an oligarchy "committee within the committee" that makes all the decisions. In Apache projects, however, the decision making is much flatter. For example we have over 120 "committers" in the OpenOffice project. Any of them can make code changes, and any of them can veto code changes from others. So the power is very distributed, a flat organizational hierarchy. > 3. Describe how the various personal involved in the process, contribute to > the overall development? > We use a lowest-common denominator technical approach to collaboration, relying mainly on mailing lists, wikis and version control to collaborate. Since we're spread out all over the world, these kinds of tools work well. We're not all in the same timezone, so little of our collaboration is in real-time. We use a main mailing list (the "dev" list) for overall project coordination, and then also have specialized lists for QA, Marketing, Translation, Documentation, etc. > 4. Evaluate how social and ethical issues were addressed? > See: http://www.openoffice.org/stats/ooo-dev-subscribers.html > 6. Evaluate how effectively the new system met the needs of the user or the > target market? > I would not say the system is "new". Apache has been around since 1999, and the basic approach toward community-led open source projects is well-established and replicated in many other organizations. The fact that we have had over 35 million downloads of our most recent release of OpenOffice (3.4) is a good sign. The fact that Apache as a foundation publishes many of the top open source projects in use today is another good sign that The Apache Way to community open source development is a powerful approach. Regards, -Rob > > If you could help me in any way to answer a few questions or all of the > questions I would be very grateful and thank you for your time in advance. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > TRINITY CATHOLIC COLLEGE LISMORE CONFIDENTIALITY & PRIVACY NOTICE: > This email is confidential.If you are not the intended recipient,please > notify the sender immediately. > You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to > any other person. > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRINITY CATHOLIC COLLEGE LISMORE CONFIDENTIALITY & PRIVACY NOTICE: This email is confidential.If you are not the intended recipient,please notify the sender immediately. You should not copy or use it for any purpose, nor disclose its contents to any other person.
