Open source software: lessons from and for software engineering

Open source software can elicit strongly contrasting reactions. Advocates claim that OSS is high-quality software produced on a rapid time scale and for free or at very low cost by extremely talented developers. At the same time, critics characterize OSS as variable-quality software that has little or no documentation, is unpredictable as to stability or reliability, and rests on an uncertain legal foundation—the result of a chaotic development process that is completely alien to software engineering’s fundamental tenets and conventional wisdom. Research suggests a more balanced view. On one hand, OSS is not the “silver bullet” championed by its most vocal partisans. On the other hand, it does not radically diverge from traditional software engineering practice as its severest detractors claim, and, as evidenced by some notable successes, OSS offers many tangible benefits.