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Commit ae32d560fd205d9e4078bf233bedf9d17de38acf

Authored by Paulo Meireles
1 parent f5da9c76
Exists in master and in 3 other branches oss_2018, oss_2018_siqueira, rework_case_study

[opensym] minor fixes

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opensym2017/content/00-abstract.tex
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1 1 \begin{abstract}
2 2  
3 3 The Brazilian Public Software (SPB) is a program by the Brazilian Federal
4   -Government to foster the sharing and collaboration on Free and Open Source
5   -Software (FOSS) solutions for the public administration. In the one hand,
6   -Brazilian Public Softwares have some differences from FOSS projects, in
  4 +Government to foster the sharing and collaboration on Free/Libre/Open Source
  5 +Software (FLOSS) solutions for the public administration. In the one hand,
  6 +Brazilian Public Softwares have some differences from FLOSS projects, in
7 7 particular, the software is considered a public good and the Federal government
8 8 assumes some responsibilities related to its use. In the other hand, the
9 9 software development principles are the same: the trend towards
10 10 decentralization in decision-making, the information and development sharing,
11 11 and the continuous feedback. In this context, we have designed a platform based
12   -on the integration and evolution of existing FOSS tools. Nowadays, the SPB
  12 +on the integration and evolution of existing FLOSS tools. Nowadays, the SPB
13 13 Portal provides several modern features for software collaborative development,
14 14 helping the Brazilian public administration to share its solutions. In this
15 15 paper, we present this integrated software development platform that was
16 16 developed for the program by a heterogeneous team composed by professors,
17   -master students, undergraduate students and professionals from FOSS
18   -communities. The development of this platform used several FOSS applications,
  17 +master students, undergraduate students and professionals from FLOSS
  18 +communities. The development of this platform used several FLOSS applications,
19 19 providing a non-trivial integration among them, as well as, have generated
20 20 several contributed features back to them. In this experience report, alongside
21 21 the platform architecture, features, and the user experience efforts carried
... ...
opensym2017/content/01-introduction.tex
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... ... @@ -3,11 +3,11 @@
3 3  
4 4 The Brazilian Federal Government has been
5 5 improving 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
  6 +instance, in 2003, the recommendation to adopt Free/Libre/Open Source
  7 +Software (FLOSS) become a public policy. In 2007, the Brazilian
8 8 Government released a portal named Brazilian Public Software
9 9 (\textit{Software Público Brasileiro} -- SPB, in Portuguese), with the
10   -goal of sharing FOSS projects developed by, or for, the Brazilian
  10 +goal of sharing FLOSS projects developed by, or for, the Brazilian
11 11 Government. Additionally, the Brazilian legal instrument on software
12 12 contracting (known as IN 04/2012) mandates that public agents must give
13 13 priority to solutions available on the SPB Portal. In short, the
... ... @@ -18,12 +18,12 @@ In 2013, the Brazilian Federal Court issued a ruling document
18 18 agile methodologies in software development contracts with the public
19 19 administration.
20 20  
21   -Despite of that, in practice, FOSS or agile methodologies, that is,
  21 +Despite of that, in practice, free software or agile methodologies, that is,
22 22 collaborative and empirical software development methods are not widely
23 23 practiced and understood by the Brazilian government agents. Thus, the
24 24 hierarchical and traditional processes from the government and the lack
25 25 of expertise in real-world software development of its agents produces a
26   -situation of inneficient software development contracts and
  26 +situation of inefficient software development contracts and
27 27 unjustifiable expending of taxpayers' money.
28 28  
29 29 % TODO: ^ references
... ... @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ Since 2009, the SPB Portal was having several technical issues. The original
32 32 codebase was not being developed anymore, also, there was a large amount of
33 33 knowingly non-optimal or wrong design decisions to overcome (in other words,
34 34 technical debt \cite{refactoring}). The system was a modified version of an
35   -existing FOSS platform called OpenACS \footnote{\url{http://openacs.org}}, and
  35 +existing FLOSS platform called OpenACS \footnote{\url{http://openacs.org}}, and
36 36 the old SPB portal was not being updated anymore against the official OpenACS
37 37 releases. In this scenario, the portal maintenance has become increasingly
38 38 difficult.
... ... @@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ the Brazilian Federal Government a total of 2,619,965.00 BRL (about
59 59 The project was developed by a team of 3 professors, 2 masters students, and
60 60 approximately 50 undergraduate students (not all of them at the same time,
61 61 though -- graduations and other events triggered changes in the team) together
62   -with 2 professional designers and 6 senior developers from the FOSS
  62 +with 2 professional designers and 6 senior developers from free software
63 63 communities. The professors and all undergraduate student were from UnB, and
64 64 the master students were from USP. Regarding the designers and senior
65 65 developers, 7 of 8 they were living outside of Brasília: Curitiba/Brazil, São
... ... @@ -69,18 +69,18 @@ distributed collaborative virtual environment.
69 69  
70 70 Figure \ref{fig:spb} shows the home page of this integrated platform.
71 71 All development was done in the open, and the changes we needed in the
72   -FOSS tools were contributed back to their respective communities. Our
73   -process was based on agile practices and FOSS communities interaction.
  72 +FLOSS tools were contributed back to their respective communities. Our
  73 +process was based on agile practices and FLOSS communities interaction.
74 74 We defined development cycles and released 5 versions of the new SPB
75 75 Portal. The first release (beta) was in September 2014, only 9 months
76   -from the beginning of the project. The old portal was shut down down in
77   -September 2015. Finally, the last version illustrated in Figure 1 was
  76 +from the beginning of the project. The old portal was shut down in
  77 +September 2015. Finally, the last version, illustrated in Figure 1, was
78 78 released in June 2016.
79 79  
80 80 In this paper, we present an overview of this new generation of the SPB
81 81 Portal. The paper shares the methodology employed to develop this project,
82 82 in partnership with the Brazilian Federal Government, to comply with its
83   -requirements at the same time to be as faithful as possible to FOSS development.
  83 +requirements at the same time to be as faithful as possible to FLOSS development.
84 84 Moreover, we discuss several lessons learned to provide a distributed
85 85 collaborative virtual environment involving a large undergraduate student team
86 86 and remote senior developers. Lastly, we released an unprecedented platform for
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opensym2017/content/02-spb.tex
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... ... @@ -6,15 +6,15 @@ that we now identify as free software, that is, sharing code openly. This
6 6 openness makes the code available for inspection, modification, and use by any
7 7 person or organization \cite{hippel2003,kon2012}.
8 8  
9   -The elements that distinguish FOSS from other types of software are the
  9 +The elements that distinguish FLOSS from other types of software are the
10 10 reasoning about the development process, the economic context, the relationship
11 11 between developers and users, as well as the ethical and legal characteristics
12   -that relate to the software. In the context of FOSS, user freedom is promoted
  12 +that relate to the software. In the context of FLOSS, user freedom is promoted
13 13 and its development is based on open collaboration and development practices
14 14 \cite{meirelles2013}.
15 15  
16 16 From the economic point of view, unlike what happens with proprietary software,
17   -FOSS promotes the establishment of several suppliers that can compete with each
  17 +FLOSS promotes the establishment of several suppliers that can compete with each
18 18 other based on the same software. This stronger competition among suppliers
19 19 brings benefits to users because it gives better assurances regarding the
20 20 evolution of the system and induces a reduction in prices \cite{kon2012}. These
... ... @@ -23,9 +23,9 @@ freedoms and assurances on software are guaranteed in Brazil by Law 9610/98
23 23 the terms conferred by a contract related to certain software. This contract is
24 24 called ``license''. A software license determines a list of rights that are
25 25 given to, and duties that are imposed on a user of the software. In particular,
26   -what differentiates FOSS from proprietary software is just the way they are
27   -licensed \cite{sabino2009}. The FOSS licenses guarantee the right to execute,
28   -study, adapt, and improve the software. Example of common FOSS licenses are
  26 +what differentiates FLOSS from proprietary software is just the way they are
  27 +licensed \cite{sabino2009}. The FLOSS licenses guarantee the right to execute,
  28 +study, adapt, and improve the software. Example of common FLOSS licenses are
29 29 the \textit{GPL (GNU General Public License)}, the Apache license, the MIT
30 30 license, and the BSD license.
31 31  
... ... @@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ that has consolidated itself as an environment for sharing software
35 35 projects. It provides a space (community) for each software.
36 36 Therefore, it was designed to include tools that promote collaboration
37 37 and interaction in communities (by managers, users, and developers) of
38   -the projects, according to the practices used in FOSS communities. This
  38 +the projects, according to the practices used in FLOSS communities. This
39 39 includes mailing lists, discussion forums, issue trackers, version
40 40 control systems, and social networking environments.
41 41  
... ... @@ -47,11 +47,11 @@ results obtained through the use of those solutions. In this way, some software
47 47 development cooperatives and private companies have shown an interest in making
48 48 their software available on the SPB platform.
49 49  
50   -The concept of Brazilian Public Software goes beyond FOSS. In addition
51   -to being licensed under a FOSS license, a SPB needs to have explicit
  50 +The concept of Brazilian Public Software goes beyond FLOSS. In addition
  51 +to being licensed under a FLOSS license, a Brazilian public software needs to have explicit
52 52 guarantees that it is a public good, and that project must be available
53 53 on the SPB portal. Being a true public good assumes requirements that
54   -can not be met solely by means of FOSS licensing. For example, there
  54 +can not be met solely by means of FLOSS licensing. For example, there
55 55 must be a relaxed trademark usage policy by the original vendor that
56 56 does not stop eventual competitors from advertising services for that
57 57 same software. Inclusion in the SPB Portal also has extra requirements,
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opensym2017/content/03-relatedworks.tex
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... ... @@ -2,9 +2,10 @@
2 2 \label{sec:relatedwork}
3 3  
4 4 The new SPB platform presented in this paper is a fully integrated
5   -environment, as we can see in Figure \ref{fig:requirements}, being very
6   -advanced in comparison with related projects and initiatives. For example,
7   -the USA government has a platform designed to improve access to the federal
  5 +environment, being very
  6 +advanced in comparison with related projects and initiatives.
  7 +
  8 +The USA government has a platform designed to improve access to the federal
8 9 government developed software\footnote{\url{https://code.gov}}. Code.gov
9 10 is an interface to organize the USA government projects and, in short, make
10 11 it easy for users and developers to obtain information and access their
... ... @@ -30,7 +31,7 @@ business applications, cloud computing platforms and foster a community and
30 31 business ecosystem. In short, it aims to support the development, deployment
31 32 and management of distributed applications with a focus on FOSS middleware and
32 33 related development and management tools.
33   -%
  34 +
34 35 Moreover, from the European Commission in 2007 until 20011, there was the
35 36 QualiPSo project that aimed at providing FOSS users, developers, and consumers,
36 37 with quality resources and expertise on the various topics related to FOSS. The
... ... @@ -49,10 +50,10 @@ source code repositories are available at the Bitbucket
49 50 platform\footnote{\url{https://bitbucket.org/softwarepublico}}.
50 51  
51 52 The Brazilian government needed to evolve the SPB project that
52   -existed since 2005. In 2013, when we started this project, the SPB Portal
53   -had about 200 thousand registered users. We could not just contact these
  53 +existed since 2005. When we started this project, the SPB Portal
  54 +had about 200 thousand registered users. For example, we could not just contact these
54 55 users and ask them to register an account at Github as well. Moreover,
55   -after the Edward Snowden case, the Brazilian government approved a
  56 +after the Edward Snowden's case, the Brazilian government approved a
56 57 specific law decree (8.135/2013) to rule its communication services,
57 58 requiring the public administration to host its information systems to
58 59 be provided by itself, what rules out usage of private platforms,
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opensym2017/content/06-architecture.tex
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1 1 \section{Architecture}
2 2 \label{sec:architecture}
3 3  
4   -Based on the extensive list of functional requirements defined by the
5   -Brazilian Federal Government, we selected some FOSS systems to form our
6   -solution. We looked for system that together could provide the largest
7   -subset possible of the requirements, and were fully aware that we would
8   -need to improve those systems in order to provide the rest. We were also
9   -convinced that it would be impossible to provide all of those
10   -requirements with a single tool.
11   -
12 4 From the point of view of the architecture, two main requirements was
13 5 brought by the Brazilian Federal Government for the new platform:
14 6  
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