The Appropriation of a Software Ecosystem
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The Appropriation of a Software Ecosystem A Practice Take on the Usage, Maintenance and Modification of the Eclipse IDE Sebastian Draxler Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doktor rerum politicarum (Dr. rer. pol.) an der Fakultät III: Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht der Universität Siegen Jahr der Fertigstellung: 2014 Erster Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Gunnar Stevens Zweiter Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Volker Wulf Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 23. Oktober 2014 Abstract III Abstract This thesis was written in order to gain a deeper understanding of the appropriation of software in groups and organizations. In doing so, it focuses on software created un- der the modern software engineering trend software ecosystems. Software ecosystems have a major inuence on software development, as they rely on massive usage of dis- tributed software development, open source models and modularization. It is unclear if existing models to explain appropriation still hold good. Furthermore, it has to be ex- plored whether current appropriation support is still appropriate and benecial or if we need new ideas to help users cope with these developments. In order to achieve these objectives, this work is mainly based on an empirical eld study, which investigates workgroups at seven German organizations that use the Eclipse IDE, an extremely modularized and adaptable software system, developed by a globally active ecosystem of large corporations, small businesses and even hobbyists. Using the qualitative analysis approach of the grounded theory method and appropri- ation as a lens for this research endeavor, observations and interviews as well as arti- facts were analyzed, uncovering practices that are part of Eclipse usage and appropria- tion. They are identied and discussed from the backdrop of software ecosystems – viewed from a users perspective. Examples are the sheer amount of appropriation ac- tivities at the shop oor, the dilemma of software maintenance, that comes with con- tinuously developed but sometimes unstable technology, practices as learning or tailor- ing, inuences on practices stemming from the software ecosystem, the organization and the group. Grounded in these results, suggestions for the design of appropriation support are giv- en and prototypically implemented, which reect the embeddedness of individuals and groups in the software ecosystem. They provide a fresh perspective, based on peer-to- peer technology and awareness mechanisms. IV Acknowledgements Acknowledgements There are a lot of people who have to be mentioned for their importance to me and to this work. I cannot thank Gunnar Stevens enough, who acted as my mentor for many years and as my supervisor for this work. Working with him has lead to my interest in this topic and in the end to this book. Many ideas and insights of my work are based on the dis- cussions we had during my work on the thesis and our collaborative work for the CoEUD project. Furthermore for his co-authorship and constructive feedback. I thank Volker Wulf, for guiding my interest towards the intersection of Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Software Engineering and for awaking my interest in research. His advice and support through the whole process was especially important. Special thanks to Alexander Boden, Kai Schubert and Claudia Müller for their co-au- thorship, valuable feedback and input during the creation of many publications and the nishing phase of this thesis. Furthermore for coee. I like to thank Martin Stein, Hendrik Sander, Adrian Jung and Tobias Schwartz, for being my students in the past and for helpful collaborations. Rachel Schneider and Oliver Stickel have to be thanked for proof reading of the nal version. This contributed a lot to the readability of this document. I would also like to thank my other colleagues from the University of Siegen and Fraunhofer FIT whose feedback and inspiration has helped. Also, I thank all the participants of my studies, who remain anonymous in this thesis, for the invitations to their workplaces, for allowing me to conduct interviews and ob- servations, for contributing Eclipse-usage related data. You contributed greatly to the insights embedded in this thesis. I also feel deep gratitude towards my family and friends (especially Thorsten), who have always supported me morally through the years that it took to write this book; without their support, patience and encouragement, this would not have been possi- ble. Last but not least, I especially want to thank my partner Ania, who supported and encouraged me, despite being in a similar situation. Dziękuję. Thank you all! Related Publications V Related Publications Parts of this dissertation have already been published as conference or journal papers. The chapters of part II and part III resemble the accepted versions of these publications: ! Chapter 4: Draxler, S. & Stevens, G., 2011, Supporting the Collaborative Ap- propriation of an Open Software Ecosystem, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 20, pp. 403-48. With kind permission from Springer Science+Bus- iness Media. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10606-011-9148-9 ! Chapter 5: Draxler, S., Jung, A., Boden, A., et al., 2011. Workplace warriors: identifying team practices of appropriation in software ecosystems. In Proceeding of the 4th international workshop on Cooperative and human aspects of software engineering. CHASE ’11. Waikiki, Honolulu, HI, USA: ACM, pp. 57–60. © 2011 ACM, Inc. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1984642.1984656 ! Chapter 6: Draxler, S., Stevens, G., Boden, A., 2014. Keeping the development environment up to date - A Study of the Situated Practices of Appropriating the Eclipse IDE, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), accepted with minor revision. © 2014 IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from Sebastian Draxler, Gunnar Stevens and Alexander Boden, September 2014. http:/ /dx.doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2014.2354047 ! Chapter 7: Draxler, S., Jung, A. & Stevens, G., 2011, End-User Development, Third International Symposium, IS-EUD 2011. Torre Canne, Italy, June 7-10, 2011, Proceedings, Managing software portfolios: A comparative Study. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 337-42. With kind permission from Springer Science+Busi- ness Media. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-21530-8_36 ! Chapter 8: Draxler, S., Sander, H., Jain, P., Jung, A. & Stevens, G., 2009. In Supplementary Proceedings of the 11th European Conference on Computer Sup- ported Cooperative Work, Peerclipse: Tool Awareness in Local Communities. Vi- enna, Austria, pp. 19-20. ! Chapter 9: Draxler, S. et al., 2012. Supporting the social context of technology appropriation: on a synthesis of sharing tools and tool knowledge. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. CHI ’12. New York, NY, USA: ACM, pp. 2835–2844. © 2012 ACM, Inc. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1145/2207676.2208687 VI Related Publications Additionally, these publications contribute to the presented topic. However, they are not included as sections of this book. ! Draxler, S., Sander, H. & Stevens, G., 2008, ECAI '08 Workshop on Recom- mender Systems, Plug-in recommending for Eclipse users. University of Patras, Patras, pp. 61-2. ! Pipek, V., Stevens, G., Veith, M., Müller, C. & Draxler, S., 2008, 16th European Conference on Information Systems, Towards an Appropriation Infrastructure: Supporting User Creativity in IT Adoption. Galway, Ireland, pp. 1165-77. ! Dörner, C. et al., 2009. End Users at the Bazaar: Designing Next-Generation En- terprise Resource Planning Systems. IEEE Software, 26(5), p.45–51. ! Draxler, S., Sander, H. & Stevens, G., 2010, Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2010, Provisioning 2.0: Diusion kleinteiliger Software in sozialen Netzwerken. Universitätsverlag Göttingen, Göttingen, pp. 665-77. ! Stevens, G. & Draxler, S., 2010, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Designing Cooperative Systems, Appropriation of the Eclipse Ecosystem: Lo- cal Integration of Global Network Production. Springer, London, pp. 287-308. Contents VII Contents 1. Introduction ...........................................................................................11 1.1. A grounded motivation.....................................................................................13 1.2. Structure of this book ......................................................................................14 I. Overview ..............................................................................................................15 2. Related work ..........................................................................................17 2.1. Components in modular Software Engineering ................................................17 2.1.1. Component approaches for modular software systems .............................17 2.1.2. Component approaches built for user customization................................19 2.1.3. Components for manufacturing purposes: Software Product Lines ..........20 2.1.4. Software Ecosystems.................................................................................21 2.1.5. Modularity in Integrated Development Environments..............................26 2.2. Situated use and appropriation of modular software systems ..........................27 2.2.1. The 1st generation of studies on exible system usage: tailoring .............28 2.2.2. The 2nd generation of studies on exible system usage: appropriation....29 2.3. Appropriation of software ecosystems ..............................................................31