Why Good Software Sometimes Dies... and how to save it
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The document discusses the sustainability of software within the UK e-science community, emphasizing the transition from creation to widespread use and the necessity of building supportive communities around software. It addresses the risks of software decay, highlights the importance of user engagement, and offers strategies for improving collaboration and contribution among users and developers. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure the longevity and effectiveness of software through community support and structured governance.
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Why Good Software Sometimes Dies... and how to save it
- 1. Why Good Software Sometimes Dies … and how to save it JISC Innovation Forum 16 July 2008, Keele University Neil Chue Hong Director, OMII-UK
- 3. What’s the issue? “ Sustainability is not an issue for CS researchers, we want others to take the software over subject to IP issues” “ Sustainability is a big issue, we are producing complex tools we want to continue to use but it’s not clear how they’ll be sustained” How do we ensure that software which has users can continue to support them? In particular how do we help software survive the transition from creation to widespread use
- 4. Software and Support for the UK e-Science community OMII-UK aims to provide software and support to enable a sustained future for the UK e-Science community and its international collaborators More than just the middleware go above the components to provide added value Skilled team to help the community putting the right things together, integrating components providing consultancy and support to improve takeup developing, commissioning and improving software www.omii.ac.uk
- 5. Engaging Research with e-Infrastructure Interviewing researchers to identify what works and what’s needed Analysing requirements and proposing interventions Developing solutions and disseminating best practice www.engage.ac.uk
- 6. Sustainable Communities: Film Exhibition
- 7. Sustainable Communities: Services and Events
- 8. Sustainable Communities: Small-Medium sized Enterprise
- 9. The Long Tail Name one example of an organisation benefitting from “the long tail” which isn’t Amazon.
- 10. The Long Tail “ Given a large enough availability of choice, a large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs, the selection and buying pattern of the population results in a power law distribution curve, or Pareto distribution, instead of the expected normal distribution curve”
- 11. Comparing Apples and Oranges?
- 12. Comparing Apples and Books! Storage lifespan: ~12 months Storage lifespan: ~ 50 years Which one is closer to the lifespan of software?
- 13. The Long Tail in Software “ Given a large enough availability of choice, a large population of customers, and negligible stocking and distribution costs , the selection and buying pattern of the population results in a power law distribution curve, or Pareto distribution, instead of the expected normal distribution curve” Investment is required to prevent decay
- 14. Open Source software is free… Free as in speech… free as in beer, or…
- 15. Free as in Puppy… Long term costs Needs love and attention May lose charm after growing up Occasional clean-ups required Many left abandoned by their owners
- 16. Open Source addresses some issues, but is not a “silver bullet”. Your software may still be in a poor condition. Which (open source) software do you use on a regular basis Why do you use it? features support cost recommendation …
- 17. ENGAGE preliminary, non-empirical qualitative finding People will tend to prioritise ease of use, support and continued development over a complete feature set This requires a sustainable community around the software. Don’t agree? Sign up for an interview to correct the bias! info@engage.ac.uk
- 18. “ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life.” "Teach a man to fish, and you introduce another competitor into the overcrowded fishing industry. Give a man a fish, and you stimulate demand for your product" Sustainable communities demonstrate 4 key factors: - cohesion and identity - tolerance of diversity - efficient use of resources - adaptability to change
- 19. The Long Tail (yet again) large enough availability of choice requires a comparable marketplace large population of customers requires a growing total community of users negligible stocking and distribution costs requires efficient use of resources and technology
- 20. Basic Software Economics If you can identify: the value of your software who values it You can work out: the market segment appropriate to the user base the likely amount of resources available Value for users becomes value for the software don’t be afraid to be small and niche if it has value
- 21. Sustainable Software Communities How does this relate to software? Cohesion and Identity: Creating a community Tolerance and Diversity: Smart growth through collaboration Efficient use of resources: Leveraging infrastructure Adaptability to change: Governing sustainably We are farmers, not hunter-gathers
- 22. Have you contributed to a piece of software that hadn’t been written by your group? if so, what made it easy / would have made it easier? if not, what prevented them doing it? Have you ever contributed?
- 23. The Four Levels of e-Science Enlightenment 1) Resources: Providing access to a larger and wider diversity 2) Automation: Repeatability and management of experiments 3) Collaboration: Intra + cross disciplinary networks 4) Participation: Increasing access to a wider set of users; increasing knowledge in a domain
- 24. Creating a Community Who are the users of the software? Why do they use it? What do they value from it? What is their relationship between developers and users? What do people want to do? not how can they use what we’ve got to do it
- 25. Helping establish communities Communities require more than functional software documentation and training guaranteed long-term support stable APIs as well as interoperable standards sharing of best practice and issues Clear understanding of the requirements that make them a distinct community
- 26. Smart Growth through Collaboration How do you turn users into collaborators into contributors? Moving from a single team at a single organisation to more diverse, sustainable development Trivial barriers are sometimes insurmountable what’s easy for one is often frustrating for others don’t assume the last step’s easy for everyone celebrate success in the community
- 27. Community Engagement and Communication Training, tutorials, advice Beta-Testers and Tech Previews User Forums, User Advocates Mailing Lists, IRC, online forums Different ways of understanding community needs and gathering feedback Multiple approaches from multiple skill bases to attack a common problem Make people feel a part of the team, and the team will grow
- 28. Leveraging Infrastructure Prevent defects rather than just fix Use technology to lower effort Keep code shippable to aid collaboration Improve design continually and cost-effectively Make it easy for new developers Consistent pace that balances short- versus long-term requirements a frequent release cycle keeps people engaged
- 29. Governing Sustainably Copyright Licensing Value Decisions Trust Create a governance model that makes it easy to contribute, easy to make decisions and maintains quality, whilst being able to adapt to change Be prepared to make the gradual transition from benevolent dictatorship to democratic meritocracy
- 30. The trade-offs of a larger community “ Connected , distributed systems , from power grids to business firms to even entire economies , are both more fragile and more robust than populations of isolated entities .” Duncan J. Watts Professor of Sociology Columbia University Sometimes the thing that kills software is that the community becomes too fragile
- 31. Software as a shared facility Communities develop to share workload and develop specialisms but grow a community too large and it lacks cohesion Groups like OMII-UK can identify and generate synergies amongst different groups identify specialisms which are useful across disciplines create benefit without diluting community vision provide networking and sharing of best practice help with the “unglamorous” work
- 32. Does the software you produce or use have a good knowledge of who its users are? make it easy for people to contribute How could things be even better? do you know where in the long tail you are? where do you want the software to be? Share examples with others! Thinking about your software
- 33. How to keep good software alive Understand the value Identify the community Leverage technology Improve process Keep people engaged Encourage contribution Above all, if you use it, make sure people know!
- 34. OMII-UK’s and ENGAGE’s Mission (again) OMII-UK aims to provide software and support to enable a sustained future for the UK e-Science community and its international collaborators ENGAGE aims to overcome specific identified barriers for researchers using software to create examples for the commune I hope this talk has given you some ideas of how to achieve this yourself or in collaboration with others ©
- 35. Don’t let good software die! [email_address] www.slideshare.net/npch Value Community Technology Process People Contribution