The Social Side of Software Platform Ecosystems
Software and Programming Tools
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de Souza, Cleidson R. B.
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Filho, Fernando Figueira
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Miranda, Müller
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Ferreira, Renato Pina
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Treude, Christoph
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Singer, Leif
Proceedings of the ACM CHI'16 Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems
2016-05-07
v.1
p.3204-3214
© Copyright 2016 ACM
Summary: Software ecosystems as a paradigm for large-scale software development
encompass a complex mix of technical, business, and social aspects. While
significant research has been conducted to understand both the technical and
business aspects, the social aspects of software ecosystems are less well
understood. To close this gap, this paper presents the results of an empirical
study aimed at understanding the influence of social aspects on developers'
participation in software ecosystems. We conducted 25 interviews with mobile
software developers and an online survey with 83 respondents from the mobile
software development community. Our results point out a complex social system
based on continued interaction and mutual support between different actors,
including developers, friends, end users, developers from large companies, and
online communities. These findings highlight the importance of social aspects
in the sustainability of software ecosystems both during the initial adoption
phase as well as for long-term permanence of developers.