On the importance of sound architectural practices in the use of OSS in software product lines

Software Product Line (SPL) and Open Source Software (OSS) have emerged as successful modes of developing software. Although they appear to differ in terms of development principles and processes, researchers and practitioners have been increasingly emphasising the need to achieve synergies by exploiting the ever growing repositories of OSS components for developing SPLs. While there have been calls for the SPL community to accelerate the widespread use of OSS in SPL, less attention has been paid to how OSS communities could increase the use of OSS components in SPL. Since architectural issues are considered critical in the SPL community, we propose that an increased attention on architectural aspects of OSS components may provide the confidence that organizations need in order for them to choose and use OSS components in SPL. We identify a number of architectural practices which are followed by the SPL community and discuss the possibilities for and potential benefits of incorporating those practices in OSS development processes.