Acquisition of Open Architecture Software Systems

Project Dates: 
October 2007
Research Area(s): 
Funding: 

Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey, California

Project Description: 

This research focuses on techniques for identifying and reducing the costs, streamlining the process, and improving the readiness of future workforce for the acquisition of complex software systems. Emphasis is directed at identifying, tracking, and analyzing software component costs and cost reduction opportunities within acquisition life cycle of open architecture (OA) systems, where such systems combine best-of-breed software components and software products lines (SPLs) that are subject to different intellectual property (IP) license requirements.

The goal of this research is to create a new approach to address Better Buying Power challenges in the acquisition of software systems for the Department of Defense. Program managers, acquisition officers, and contract managers will increasingly be called on to review and approve choices between functionally similar low or no cost open source software components, and commercially priced closed source software components, to be used in the design, implementation, deployment, and evolution of open architecture (OA) systems. We seek to make this a simpler, more transparent, and more tractable process. Such a process must identify, track, and analyze software component costs throughout the system life cycle, and be easy to reuse for different system application domains, in order to realize cost reductions and improve acquisition workforce capabilities. Our recent research demonstrates how complex OA systems can be designed, built, and deployed with alternative components and connectors resulting in functionally similar system versions, to satisfy overall system security requirements and individual system component intellectual property (IP) requirements. Our next step, proposed here, is to identify, track, and analyze software component costs associated with different types of component IP licenses when acquiring OA systems, and to do so in ways that highlight opportunities for cost reduction. Expected results will be applicable to enterprise software systems in other government agencies and industrial firms, as well as to enterprise and mission-critical systems for the DoD community.

Publications: 
Alspaugh, T. A., and W. Scacchi, "Ongoing Software Development Without Classical Requirements", 21st IEEE international Conference on Requirements Engineering (RE), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pp. 165-174, July 15-19, 2013.
Scacchi, W., and T. A. Alspaugh, "Challenges in the Development and Evolution of Secure Open Architecture Command and Control Systems", 18th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, 2013 (ICCRTS), Alexandira, VA, pp. 1-17, June, 2013.
Scacchi, W., and T. A. Alspaugh, "Streamlining the Process of Acquiring Secure Open Architecture Software Systems", 10th Annual Acquisition Research Symposium, Monterey, CA, pp. 608-623, May, 2013.
Scacchi, W., and T. A. Alspaugh, "Processes in Securing Open Architecture Software Systems", International Conference on Software and System Process (ICSSP 2013), San Francisco, CA, ACM, pp. 126-135, May, 2013.
Scacchi, W., and T. A. Alspaugh, "Advances in the Acquisition of Secure Systems based on Open Architectures", 8th Acquisition Research Symposium, Monterey Bay, CA, May 10-12, 2011.
Alspaugh, T. A., and W. Scacchi, "Licensing Security. Position paper", Fifth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering and Law (RELAW 2012), Chicago, IL, September, 2012.
Alspaugh, T. A., W. Scacchi, and R(I). Kawai, "Software Licenses, Coverage, and Subsumption ", Fifth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering and Law (RELAW 2012), Chicago, IL, September 25-26, 2012.
Alspaugh, T. A., H. U. Asuncion, and W. Scacchi, "The Challenge of Heterogeneously Licensed Systems in Open Architecture Software Ecosystems", Software Ecosystems: Analyzing and Managing Business Networks in the Software Industry: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013.
Scacchi, W., and T. Alspaugh, "Designing Secure Systems Based on Open Architectures with Open Source and Closed Source Components", The 8th International Conference on Open Source Systems: Long-term Sustainability (OSS 2012), Hammamet, Tunisia, September 10-13, 2012.
Scacchi, W., and T. Alspaugh, "Understanding the Role of Licenses and Evolution in Open Architecture Software Ecosystems", Journal of Systems and SoftwareJournal of Systems and Software, vol. 85, no. 7, pp. 1479-1494, July, 2012.
Scacchi, W., C. Brown, and K. A. Nies, "Exploring the Potential of Virtual Worlds for Decentralized Command and Control", Intern. Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium (ICCRTS), Fairfax, VA, pp. Paper 096, June 19-21, 2012.
Alspaugh, T. A., H. U. Asuncion, and W. Scacchi, "Software Licenses, Open Source Components, and Open Architectures", Aligning Enterprise, System, and Software Architectures: IGI Global, 2012.
Jensen, C., and W. Scacchi, "License Update and Migration Processes in Open Source Software Projects", 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems, Salvador, Brazil, October, 2011.
Alspaugh, T. A., H. Asuncion, and W. Scacchi, "Presenting Software License Conflicts through Argumentation", 22nd International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering (SEKE2011), Miami, FL, July, 2011.
Alspaugh, T. A., W. Scacchi, and H. U. Asuncion, "Software Licenses in Context: The Challenge of Heterogeneously-Licensed Systems.", Journal of the Association for Information SystemsJournal of the Association for Information Systems, vol. 11, no. 11, pp. 730–755, Nov., 2010.
Jensen, C., and W. Scacchi, "Governance in Open Source Software Development Projects: A Comparative Multi-level Analysis", 6th International IFIP WG 2.13 Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2010), Notre Dame, IN, pp. 130-142, May-June, 2010.
Alspaugh, T. A., H. U. Asuncion, and W. Scacchi, "The Role of Software Licenses in Open Architecture Ecosystems", First International Workshop on Software Ecosystems (IWSECO-2009), Falls Church, VA, pp. 4-18, September, 2009.
Alspaugh, T. A., H. U. Asuncion, and W. Scacchi, "Intellectual Property Rights Requirements for Heterogeneously-Licensed Systems", 2009 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference, pp. 24-33, 2009.
Alspaugh, T. A., H. U. Asuncion, and W. Scacchi, "Analyzing software licenses in open architecture software systems", Proceedings of the 2009 ICSE Workshop on Emerging Trends in Free/Libre/Open Source Software Research and Development: IEEE Computer Society, pp. 54-57, 2009.
Scacchi, W., "Understanding Requirements for Open Source Software", Design Requirements Engineering: A Ten-Year PerspectiveDesign Requirements Engineering: A Ten-Year Perspective: Springer-Verlag, pp. 467-494, 2009.
Scacchi, W., and C. Jensen, "Governance in Open Source Software Development Projects: Towards a Model for Network-Centric Edge Organizations", 13th International Command and Control Research and Technology Symposium, Bellevue, WA, June 17, 2008.
Scacchi, W., and T. A. Alspaugh, "Emerging Issues in the Acquisition of Open Source Software by the U.S. Department of Defense", 5th Annual Acquisition Research Symposium., vol. 1, Monterey, CA, NPS-AM-08-036, Naval Postgraduate School, pp. 230-244, May 13-15, 2008.