Organisational Considerations In The Work Of Software Engineering
Graham Button, Xerox Research Centre Europe, Cambridge

Abstract

The movement towards 'open source' has mainly concerned what are relatively small undertakings. Yet, some of the problems of large-scale engineering projects done within complex organisational structures and involving scores and even hundreds of software engineers may also be addressed through the open source concept.

Within software engineering organisations, projects that are managed independently of one another are often addressing similar problems and might benefit from sharing code with each other, and past projects may have relevance for current projects. However, the organisational difficulties that often beset engineering projects may be a barrier to the idea of open source. For example, software development is done under strict deadlines and often falls behind schedule, any work not directly involved in moving the project forward is an unaffordable overhead. Also, the preservation of code from one project to another is often jeopardised through lack of documentation and the break up of teams. Further, developments are often done under a regime of SPI which requires code validation.

In this paper, we offer a sketch of some of the organisational issues that surround software and hardware development on middle to large scaled engineering projects. It is based upon ethnographic studies that we have carried out on four such projects. As sociologists, it is not our place to comment upon the appropriateness of open source itself, nor upon the way in which it could scale up to support the sorts of undertakings witnessed in our studies. However, with regard to the latter, we outline some of the organisational considerations that we have witnessed and the way in which they bear upon the actual doing of the engineering that may be relevant to a consideration of open source in these environments. Again, it is not our place to draw conclusions here, but to support others in doing that by providing evidence and data for their subsequent deliberations.