Quality

The basic idea behind the Open Source (OS) concept

is simple and comprises the availability of the

source code, the right to modify derived work, the

free redistribution, the integrity of the author’s source

code and no restrictions for licenses [1]. Dietze [2]

characterizes the Open Source Software Development

(OSSD) model as a collaborative “bug-driven”

development of globally distributed voluntary participants

with high diversity of capabilities and qualifications

of all actors. The interaction occurs exclusively

through web-based technologies and development

activities are executed in parallel, delivering frequent

new software releases.

The OSSD model differs from traditional plandriven

approaches. While traditional methods have

defined teams and requirements, the OSSD follows

an iterative and parallel development approach with a

user driven development direction, no central management,

free participation, large development communities

and effective user testing. Under the OSSD

model quality management is affected by several

aspects, such as the development methodology is

often not documented, testing and Quality Assurance

(QA) methods are informally applied, projects do not

collate empirical evidence regarding quality and only

few measurable quality goals are defined [3].

The OSSD model delivers successful products that

seem to be high quality, such as Linux or the Apache

Web Server. Hence, certain practices to assure software

quality may exist. We hypothesize that successful

projects follow similar key processes to assure

software quality under the OSSD. The aim of this

research is to investigate these key processes and to

show their interactions in a process model. A qualitative

research approach is selected and structured interviews

with mature OSS projects are conducted to

explore their QA practices. The findings contribute to

the development of a QA process framework. Case

study research is used to validate the...