Management Accounting for Inner Source

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Dirk Riehle
• Subject Area: Software Engineering and Programming Languages
• Term: from 2017 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 382466185

We propose to develop and validate models and tool prototypes for accounting for inner source labor and evaluating inner source projects and programs.Inner source (IS) is the use of open source software development practices within an organization. An organization adopting IS opens up parts of its software code and other artifacts internally and invites all developers within the organization to contribute code changes. Thus, IS breaks down development silos and establishes collaboration across intra-organizational boundaries where no collaboration existed before.In the first phase of this project we developed and evaluated (using case-study research) a method and tool for measuring IS collaboration by measuring the patch-flow. Patch-flow is the flow of code contributions across organizational boundaries.The purpose of developing this basic measurement method was to base models and tools for accounting for IS labor and for evaluating IS projects and programs on it. These models and tools still do not exist. In this proposed follow-up project, we will develop these models and prototypically implement tools to support them. We will validate our work using multiple-case case study research. Organizations can use these models and tools to more effectively manage IS projects and programs. We expect that our work will simplify IS adoption and management and will make software development more effective and efficient.The proposed work is structured into four work packages. Combining IS experience reports with models from economics literature and our own project experiences, we will develop an accounting model of IS labor and develop a tool prototype implementing the model. Model and tool will be capable to provide an aggregated view of IS labor within an organization (work package α). Using the tool as a vehicle, we will validate the viability and utility of the accounting model in a multiple-case case study with three large software developing organizations (work package β). Subsequently, we will develop an evaluation model for IS projects and programs. From literature and expert interviews, we will identify quality attributes of IS programs. We will design and implement metrics to evaluate an IS program in regards to the identified quality attributes (work package γ). We will validate the viability and utility of the evaluation model with a second multiple-case case study with three large organizations (work package δ).The proposed models will be the first of their kind to account for IS labor and evaluate IS within an organization.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants