REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING CHALLENGES IN OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT: A MULTIVOCAL LITERATURE REVIEW PROTOCOL WITH PRELIMINARY RESULTS

Abstract

In the dynamic landscape of software development, open source software (OSS) has acquired traction due to its collaborative and transparent nature. In OSS, source code of the software is accessible to users under a copyright license. The license allows the users to examine, improve, alter and distribute the software either in modified or unmodified form. Richard Stallman, programmer at MIT, presented the idea of making source code freely accessible in the year 1983, from an ideological movement. Users must accept the conditions of a license before the use of OSS. Requirement engineering (RE) is the process of gathering requirements statements, along with the documentation and analysis for a project. Requirements that are insufficient, unclear, inconsistent, and incomplete, may adversely affect software development. In OSS, requirements emerge through online conversations, as well as discussions evolve continually in different online forums and emails. Requirements’ gathering is a complex process and its practitioners may face different challenges while practicing it. A Multivocal literature review (MLR) will be conducted to find out challenges, success factors, and practices/solutions for the identified challenges in RE process of OSS. This research will help academic researcher, OSS practitioners and managers to improve RE process, leading to more efficient, effective and successful software applications.