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QA Under The Open Source Development Model

Posted by timothy on from the sound-the-pdf-klaxon dept.

carrowood writes "A survey was conducted questioning open source developers from both large and small projects concerning their quality assurance practices. A research paper based on the survey result was just published in the Journal of Systems and Software. Some comparisions between QA practices of open vs closed source projects are made with some interesting observations. While on the whole it looks like open source QA can be as good as that in traditional software development, there were a few areas pointed out where the open source community does not do so well, such as regression testing and setting release dates. A thought provoking read."

3 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. ISO by Gortbusters.org · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Do any open source projects get audited for ISO 9001 compliance? They have a quality certification that many [enterprise] customers desire.

    I know at work ISO audits are both fun and exciting! (must contain laughter)

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  2. Release dates? by mrjb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Considering the fact that open source software is often not commercial, it doesn't sound strange to me that release dates are not very strict. As there often is no budget, there is no maximum allowed time that may be spent on the feature set. Thus, software is released whenever the planned features have been built in, rather than cutting the desired feature set to fit the release date.

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  3. Amen! by wowbagger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I like to make this point about ISO-9000: if they are not now ISO-9000 certified, McDonalds could be in about five minutes - they have a proceedure for everything. Does this mean that McD's good is "good quality"?

    IF you have a proceedure, AND IF that proceedure included required analysis of failures, AND IF that proceedure requires improvements to the proceedures to correct the failures, THEN you MIGHT begin to approach quality over time.

    However, far too many company's ISO proceedures fail to require analysis and actively discourage improvement to the proceedures ("You want to change the proceedure! OK, here's a ton of paperwork to fill out, and you will have to get the signatures of fourteen people who would rather not sign anything other than their own paychecks. Have Fun!").

    ISO is really just a big peer-pressure MLM scam the way it is run now.

    And yes, the company I work for is ISO 9001 qualified.

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