On the Impact of Software Ecosystems in Requirements Communication and Management

The treatment of economic and social issues in Software Engineering was pointed out as a challenge for the next years. Companies and organizations have directly (or not) opened up their software platforms and assets to others, including partners and third-party developers around the world, generating software ecosystems (SECOs). This changes the traditional software industry because it requires mature research in software requirements and architecture in an environment where business models and socio-technical networks can impact the management of the platforms’ needs and demands overtime. However, one strong inhibitor is the complexity in defining and modeling SECOs elements to improve their comprehension and analysis and their impacts on requirements engineering. So, this paper introduces an approach to support SECO definition and modeling based on the SECOs domain. The goal consists in dealing with the stakeholders’ value proposition and realization in SECOs, as well as treating nontechnical issues in components and social repositories.