Quality assurance under the open source development model

The open source development model has defied traditional software development practices by generating widely accepted products (e.g., Linux, Apache, Perl) while following unconventional principles such as the distribution of free source code and massive user participation. Those achievements have initiated and supported many declarations about the potential of the open source model to accelerate the development of reliable software. However, the pronouncements in favor or against this model have been usually argumentative, lacking of empirical evidence to support either position. Our work uses a survey to overcome those limitations. The study explores how software quality assurance is performed under the open source model, how it differs from more traditional software development models, and whether some of those differences could translate into practical advantages given the right circumstances. The findings indicate that open source has certainly introduced a new dimension in large-scale distributed software development. However, we also discovered that the potential of open source might not be exploitable under all scenarios. Furthermore, we found that many of the open source quality assurance activities are still evolving. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.