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Commit 361d9e5af65e7be4060cc554c1ee23b30d6345df

Authored by Antonio Terceiro
1 parent 0875e57a
Exists in master and in 3 other branches oss_2018, oss_2018_siqueira, rework_case_study

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opensym2017/content/01-introduction.tex
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1 1 \section{Introduction}
2 2 \label{sec:intro}
3 3  
4   -During the last few decades, the Brazilian Federal Government tries to change
5   -its software adoption and development processes. For instance, in 2003, the
6   -recommendation to adopt Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) become a public
7   -policy. In 2007, the Brazilian Government released a portal named Brazilian
8   -Public Software (\textit{Software Público Brasileiro} -- SPB, in Portuguese),
9   -with the goal of sharing FOSS projects developed by, or for, the Brazilian
  4 +During the last few decades, the Brazilian Federal Government has been
  5 +trying to change its software adoption and development processes. For
  6 +instance, in 2003, the recommendation to adopt Free and Open Source
  7 +Software (FOSS) become a public policy. In 2007, the Brazilian
  8 +Government released a portal named Brazilian Public Software
  9 +(\textit{Software Público Brasileiro} -- SPB, in Portuguese), with the
  10 +goal of sharing FOSS projects developed by, or for, the Brazilian
10 11 Government. Additionally, the Brazilian legal instrument on software
11   -contracting (known as IN 04/2012) mandates that public management must consult
12   -the SPB Portal to adopt a software solution. In short, the acquisition of a
13   -proprietary solution must be explicitly justified by demonstrating that there
14   -is no suitable option in the SPB Portal. Lastly, in 2013, the Brazilian Federal
15   -Court issued a ruling document (\textit{Acórdão 2314/2013}) about an audit
16   -survey regarding the use of agile methodologies in software development
17   -contracts with the public administration.
  12 +contracting (known as IN 04/2012) mandates that public agents must give
  13 +priority to solutions available in the SPB Portal. In short, the
  14 +acquisition of a proprietary solution must be explicitly justified by
  15 +demonstrating that there is no suitable alternative in the SPB Portal.
  16 +In 2013, the Brazilian Federal Court issued a ruling document
  17 +(\textit{Acórdão 2314/2013}) about an audit survey regarding the use of
  18 +agile methodologies in software development contracts with the public
  19 +administration.
18 20  
19   -Despite of that, in fact, FOSS or agile methodologies, that is, collaborative
20   -and empirical software development methods are not widely practiced and
21   -understood by the Brazilian government agents. Thus, the hierarchical and
22   -traditional processes from the government and the lack of expertises in
23   -real-world software development of its agent ... (bater e fazer um link com o
24   -restante)
  21 +Despite of that, in practice, FOSS or agile methodologies, that is,
  22 +collaborative and empirical software development methods are not widely
  23 +practiced and understood by the Brazilian government agents. Thus, the
  24 +hierarchical and traditional processes from the government and the lack
  25 +of expertise in real-world software development of its agents produces a
  26 +situation of inneficient software development contracts and
  27 +unjustifiable expending of taxpayers' money.
25 28  
26   -...
  29 +% TODO: ^ references
27 30  
28   -Since 2009, the SPB Portal was having several technical
29   -issues. The original codebase was not being developed anymore, and there was a
30   -large amount of technical debt to overcome. The system was a modified version
31   -of an existing FOSS platform (called
32   -OpenACS\footnote{\url{http://openacs.org}}) and the old SPB portal was not
33   -being updated anymore with its official releases. In this scenario, the portal
34   -maintenance was becoming harder and harder.
  31 +Since 2009, the SPB Portal was having several technical issues. The
  32 +original codebase was not being developed anymore, and there was a large
  33 +amount of technical debt to overcome. The system was a modified version
  34 +of an existing FOSS platform called
  35 +OpenACS\footnote{\url{http://openacs.org}}, and the old SPB portal was
  36 +not being updated anymore against the official OpenACS releases. In this
  37 +scenario, the portal maintenance was becoming harder and harder.
35 38  
36   -Afterward some events and meetings to collect all requirements from the federal
37   -government and society, a new platform for the SPB Portal was developed, among
38   -January 2014 and June 2016, by the University of Brasília (UnB) and the
39   -University of São Paulo (USP) in a partnership with the Brazilian Ministry of
40   -Budget, Planning, and Management (MP). It was designed it as an integrated
41   -platform for collaborative software development. It includes functionality for
42   -social networking, mailing lists, version control system, and source code
43   -quality monitoring. To coordinate and develop this project during 30 months,
44   -UnB received from the Brazilian Federal Government a total of 2,619,965.00 BRL
45   -(about 750,000.00 USD in June 2016).
  39 +After some events and meetings to collect requirements from the federal
  40 +government and from the society, a new platform for the SPB Portal was
  41 +developed, among January 2014 and June 2016, by the University of
  42 +Brasília (UnB) and the University of São Paulo (USP) in a partnership
  43 +with the Brazilian Ministry of Budget, Planning, and Management (MP). It
  44 +was designed as an integrated platform for collaborative software
  45 +development., and includes functionality for social networking, mailing
  46 +lists, version control system, and source code quality monitoring. To
  47 +coordinate and develop this project during 30 months, UnB received from
  48 +the Brazilian Federal Government a total of 2,619,965.00 BRL (about
  49 +750,000.00 USD in June 2016).
46 50  
47 51 \begin{figure*}[hbt]
48 52 \centering
... ... @@ -62,25 +66,27 @@ Paulo/Brazil, Ribeirão Preto/Brazil, Salvador/Brazil, Punta Cana/Dominican
62 66 Republic, and Montreal/Canada. In other words, we had a team working in
63 67 distributed collaborative virtual environment.
64 68  
65   -Figure \ref{fig:spb} shows the home page of this integrated platform. All
66   -development was done in the open, and the changes we needed in the FOSS tools
67   -were contributed back to their communities. Our process was based on agile
68   -practices and FOSS communities interaction. We defined development cycles and
69   -released 5 versions of the new SPB Portal. The first release (beta) was in
70   -September 2014, only 9 months from the begin of the project. We migrated and
71   -turned off the old portal in September 2015. Finally, the last version
72   -illustrated in Figure 1 was released in June 2016.
  69 +Figure \ref{fig:spb} shows the home page of this integrated platform.
  70 +All development was done in the open, and the changes we needed in the
  71 +FOSS tools were contributed back to their respective communities. Our
  72 +process was based on agile practices and FOSS communities interaction.
  73 +We defined development cycles and released 5 versions of the new SPB
  74 +Portal. The first release (beta) was in September 2014, only 9 months
  75 +from the beginning of the project. The old portal was shut down down in
  76 +September 2015. Finally, the last version illustrated in Figure 1 was
  77 +released in June 2016.
73 78  
74   -In this paper, we present an overview of this new generation of the SPB Portal.
75   -Alongside, this experience report shares our methodology and process to develop
76   -this project working with the Brazilian federal government to comply with its
77   -requirements at the same time to be as faithful as possible to FOSS
78   -development. Moreover, we discuss several lessons learned to provide a
79   -distributed collaborative virtual environment involving a large undergraduate
80   -student team and remote senior developers. Lastly, we released an unprecedented
81   -platform for the Brazilian government applying empirical software development
82   -methods. This case can help other projects overcome a lot of software
83   -engineering challenges in the future, as well as, how the universities take
84   -advances to improve the real-world experiences of their student with these
85   -kinds of projects.
  79 +In this paper, we present an overview of this new generation of the SPB
  80 +Portal. This experience report shares our methodology and process to
  81 +develop this project working with the Brazilian federal government to
  82 +comply with its requirements at the same time to be as faithful as
  83 +possible to FOSS development. Moreover, we discuss several lessons
  84 +learned to provide a distributed collaborative virtual environment
  85 +involving a large undergraduate student team and remote senior
  86 +developers. Lastly, we released an unprecedented platform for the
  87 +Brazilian government applying empirical software development methods.
  88 +This case can help other projects overcome similar software engineering
  89 +challenges in the future, as well as illustrate how universities can
  90 +improve the real-world experience of their students by means of this
  91 +kind of project.
86 92  
... ...