Supporting the Evolution of Research in Software Ecosystems: Reviewing the Empirical Literature
The field of software ecosystems is gradually transiting towards an established means of software development and distribution, counting numerous areas of applicability. However, research in software ecosystems, although the activity of over 10 years, is
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Introduction
The field of software ecosystems has arguably moved from a new and upcoming field to an established means of developing and distributing software products, functions, or services. Currently, it is the most viable option of software product development in several domains and is counting examples in numerous other. Although the field has been active in research in the course of more than ten years, it can be argued that research is still scratching the surface of the field. The field can be characterized as one that is counting numerous and constantly c Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 A. Maglyas and A.-L. Lamprecht (Eds.): ICSOB 2016, LNBIP 240, pp. 63–78, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-40515-5 5
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K. Manikas
increasing studies that might go into depth in a specific aspect and/or type of software ecosystems, but find it challenging to make contributions that robust, while abstract enough to be applied to different types of ecosystems. The case of software ecosystem health is a representative example of the evolution that theories in the field have been following. Software ecosystem health can be described as “the ability of the ecosystem to endure and remain variable and productive over time” [1]. It has been defined in the context of natural (biological) ecosystems and has appeared in software ecosystems mainly inspired by business ecosystems health1 . Health, has been of focus and an important aspect from the early times of software ecosystem research [7], however the work on this aspect can be mainly characterized as either (a) too abstract, and thus not directly applicable (e.g. [1,8,9]), or (b) too specific, and thus challenging to be transfered to other (types of) ecosystems (e.g. [10–12]). Similar challenges can be noted in the governance 2 of software ecosystems [15–18]. This has as a result that, although theories and concepts evolve in the field, software ecosystems are still lacking a basic level of knowledge that is tailored to the specific needs of problems in the field. These theories are not solid and specific enough to allow for measurable results, while being abstract enough to allow for transferability (i.e. applied on ecosystems of different characteristics). This becomes magnified when taking into consideration the big variability in and differentiation of types of ecosystems existing. This lack of specific theories is something that is also noted in the most recent and extensive systematic literature study of software ecosystems. [19] studies the literature of the field consisting of a total of 231 papers, spanning form 2007 to 2014. While examining the evolution of the field to characterize, among other, the field maturity, it is identified that the existing literature can be categorized as: empirical but specific, where one or more ecosystems are studied as means of addressing a problem, while the problem or the solution being highly coupled to these ecosystems; temperature measuring, where different theories, tools, or methods, usually imported from another field, investigate
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