In the present world, the companies on using the open source projects have been tend to increase in the innovation and productivity which is beneficial in sustaining the competence. These involve various developers across the globe who may be contributing to several other projects, they constantly engage with the project to improve and uplift the overall project. In each open source project, the level of intensity and the motivation with which the developers engage and contribute vary among time. Initially the research is aimed to identify how the engagement and activity of the developers in open source projects vary over time. Secondly to assess the reasons over the variance in engagement activities of the developers involved in various open source projects. Firstly, a literature review was conducted to identify the list of available metrics that are helpful to analyse the developer’s engagement in open source projects. Secondly, we conducted a multi-case study, that involved the investigation of developer’s engagement in 10 different open source projects of Apache foundation. The GitHub repositories were mined to gather the data regarding the engagement activities of the developers over the selected projects. To identify the reasons for the variation in engagement and activity of developers, we analysed documentation about each project and also interviewed 10 developers and 5 instructors, who provided additional insights about the challenges faced to contribute in open source projects. The results of this research contain the list of factors that affect the developer’s engagement with open source projects which are extracted from the case studies and are strengthened through interviews. From the data that is collected by performing repository mining, the selected projects have been categorized with the increase, decrease activeness of developers among the selected projects. By utilizing the archival data that is collected from the selected projects, the factors corporate support, community involvement, distribution of issues and contributions to open source projects and specificity of guidelines have been identified as the crucial and key factors upon the success of the open source projects reflecting the engagement of contributors. In addition to this finding the insights on using open source projects are also collected from both perspectives of developers and instructors are presented.  This research had provided us a deeper insight on the working of open source projects and driving factors that influence engagement and activeness of the contributors. It has been evident from this research that the stated factors corporate support, community involvement, distribution of issues and contributions to open source projects and specificity of guidelines impacts the engagement and activeness of the developers. So, the open source projects minimally satisfying these projects can tend to see the increase of the engagement and activeness levels of the contributors. It also helps to seek the existing challenges and benefits upon contributing to open source projects from different perspectives.

Den här uppsatsen ämnar till att undersöka vilka produktfaktorer som är avgörande när företag/organisationer väljer en öppen källkods-mjukvara. Uppsatsen undersöker även hur involverad utvecklare inom företag/organisationer är vid beslutsfattande och implementation kring ny mjukvara. För att undersöka detta skapades ett ramverk baserat på tidigare forskning som innehåller fem faktorer. Ramverket lade grunden till intervjuer som genomförts på anställda inom ledning och utveckling hos en stor statlig myndighet samt ett mindre ITföretag. Resultatet av dessa intervjuer jämfördes mot ramverket, vilket visade på att de olika organisationerna prioriterar olika produktfaktorer. Den största likheten mellan organisationerna var produktfaktorn användarvänlighet. Skillnaden i prioriteringar av produktfaktorer kan bero på skillnaden i storlek av organisationerna, eller deras olika arbetsuppgifter. Utvecklare inom båda organisationer visade sig ha inflytande vid införskaffningen av ny mjukvara, men skilde sig i det att utvecklare på det mindre ITföretaget har större inflytande än hos den statliga myndigheten. Återigen kan detta bero på storleken hos de två organisationerna.

Teknikutvecklingen går snabbt framåt, och idag finns det ett stort behov av att använda andra utvecklares kod för att hänga med i det höga tempot. De kallas samlat för ramverk eller bibliotek, och hjälper utvecklaren att på ett effektivare sätt ta sig från start till mål utan att behöva skriva all programmeringskod själv. Dessa tredjepartslösningar är nästintill alltid bundna till ett licensavtal, vars restriktioner och tillåtelser utvecklaren måste följa vid nyttjandet. I denna studie har vi undersökt hur medvetenheten ser ut kring de licenser som är bundna till dessa tredjepartslösningar. Då det framkom i vår förstudie att vårt fall hade en relativt låg medvetenhet har vi även valt att titta på hur medvetenheten kan ökas. För att genomföra detta har vi valt att intervjua utvecklare och projektledare på ett konsultföretag. Vi undersökte även vilka faktorer som är viktiga för att höja medvetenheten samt vilka konsekvenser som kunde uppkomma vid bristfällande licenshantering. Vi upptäckte att det var en bristfällig kunskap om tredjepartslicenser på det studerade företaget, och hur de följde de licensrestriktioner som fanns för respektive licens. För att höja medvetenheten föreslår vi hjälpmedel i form av en automatiserad centraliserad lösning, lathundar för en enklare överblick av licensavtalen och hur användning av redan färdiga programvaror kan hjälpa till att öka medvetenheten och hanteringen av licenser. / In todays rapid technology development, there is a great need of reusing other developers code libraries to keep up with the fast pace. These code libraries are called frameworks or libraries depending on their purpose, and helps the developers to develop a product from start to finish faster than doing it all by their own. These third party software is almost always bound to a license with restrictions and permissions the developer needs to follow. In this thesis we are going to investigate the awareness of the licenses that are bound to these third party software. We found out in our pre study that the awareness where low and therefore we investigated how the awareness could be raised. In order to do this, we interviewed developers and project managers at a consulting firm. We also investigated what solutions there is to raise the awareness of third party licenses, and the problems caused by insufficient license management. We found out that there is inadequate knowledge about license management at the firm, and how the developer follows the restrictions and permissions that is bound to the license. To raise the awareness, we suggest tools to raise the awareness in form of a centralised solution, lazybones to easier understand the license agreement and already existing software to help the license management.

I en stadsmiljö som innehåller stora mängder geografisk information på en begränsad yta finns det flera faktorer som ställer till problem vid kartläggning och positionering. Målet med detta arbete var att skapa en dynamisk stadskarta för webben med visualisering av byggnader i flera plan, att skapa ett användarvänligt gränssnitt med möjlighet till relevanta dataurval samt att undersöka vilka metoder som är användbara för positionering där en GPS-mottagare inte har täckning. Den metod som främst var av intresse att undersöka är en teknik benämnd WiFi Positionering, vilken med hjälp av trådlösa accesspunkter beräknar användarens position. Ett system för datalagring och tillhandahållande av data via ett webbaserat användargränssnitt dimensionerades och implementerades. De programvaror som användes till detta var PostGIS (databashanterare), GeoServer (kartserver) och OpenLayers (kartapplikation). Systemet installerades i en testmiljö som tillhandahölls av Compare Testlab. Användargränssnittet är ett webbaserat program vilket utvecklades med en teknik som stöds av webbläsare i smartphones samt till datorers dito. Däremot fanns det under utvecklingen tekniska problem som gjorde karthanteringen i en smartphone begränsad. Programmet använder en mjukvarubaserad teknik för att med hjälp av klientens hårdvara beräkna position. Den metod som används för att beräkna positionen varierar avhängig vilken typ av klient som användaren disponerar; härur detekteras och används bästa tillgängliga metod automatiskt. Vid bra förhållanden så visar tester att den metod som använts för inomhuspositionering (WiFi Positionering) ger ett resultat som beräknar en position i rätt del av en byggnad. Resultatet visar att noggrannheten påverkas av hur tätt nätverksnoderna är placerade, hur många av dessa som är karterade och registrerade samt med vilken kvalitet detta gjorts.

Open source software is becoming increasingly popular and many organizations are using them, such as apache (used by over 50% of the world’s web servers) and Linux (a popular operating system). There exist mixed opinions about the quality of this type of software. The purpose of this study is to evaluate quality of open source CASE-tools and compare it with quality of proprietary CASE-tools. The evaluation concerns tools used for database modeling, where the DDL-generation capabilities of these tools are studied. The study is performed as a case study where one open source (two, after experiencing some difficulties with the first tool) and one proprietary tool are studied. The results of this study indicate that open source database modeling CASE-tools are not ready to challenge proprietary tools. However software developed as open source usually evolve rapidly (compared to proprietary software) and a more mature open source tool could emerge in the near future.

Das Ziel des Forschungsprojekts "Referenzarchitektur für E-Government" (RAfEG) ist es, eine Softwarearchitektur zur Unterstützung der elektronischen Abbildung von öffentlichen Verwaltungsdienstleistungen zu entwickeln. Schwerpunkt ist dabei die Konzeption und Umsetzung einer geeigneten auf Open Source Software basierenden Architektur, die den Einsatz für eine breite Klasse von E-Government-Anwendungen unterstützt. Auf der Basis dieser Architektur wird eine Referenzlösung zur Unterstützung und Realisierung von Verwaltungsdienstleistungen auf der Grundlage von optimierten Prozessen erstellt. Die dafür zu berücksichtigenden Softwarekonzepte sollen eine effiziente Nutzung von heterogenen Systemen bzw. heterogenen Hardwareplattformen für große interaktive Anwendungen aus dem Bereich der öffentlichen Verwaltung ermöglichen.

Moderne Verwaltungen in Deutschland stehen zunehmend vor der Herausforderung, trotz stetigem Abbau der finanziellen Mittel die Bearbeitungsdauer und -qualität ihrer Verwaltungsvorgänge sowie die Flexibilität bei der Bearbeitung zu steigern. Das Forschungsprojekt "Referenzarchitektur für E-Government" (RAfEG) hat das Ziel diese Verwaltungsvorgänge in Behörden elektronisch zu unterstützen und damit die Herausforderung anzunehmen. Der Großteil der Aufgaben des E-Government, was in diesem Zusammenhang vor allem als Government-to-Government verstanden werden soll, befasst sich mit der Bearbeitung von Dokumenten. Es müssen Dokumente (z.B. Anträge und Formulare) erfasst/erstellt, bearbeitet, gespeichert, weitergegeben und archiviert werden. Für das so genannte papierlose Büro, muss dies alles mittels eines Computers möglich sein und alle Mitarbeiter müssen auf denselben Daten arbeiten können, wobei eine nachvollziehbare Änderungshistorie gesichert sein muss. Die Realisierung des Dokumentenmanagementsystem innerhalb des RAfEG-Softwaresystems, das eine rechnergestützte Abarbeitung von Verwaltungsvorgängen ermöglicht, soll in diesem Bericht ausführlich vorgestellt werden.

Novell International was a leading network operating system provider in the 1980’s and 1990’s. In the mid 1990’s Novell lost market share in the network operating system market. To counter this loss, Novell made a strategic decision to go open i.e. to make use of open standards and open source business strategies. Since then Novell has managed to successfully change from being a proprietary network operating system provider to being a leader in Linux and open source solutions. Its primary business model makes use of a subscription strategy, selling subscriptions to its Linux desktop operating system called SuSE. This has been instrumental in turning their business around. For example, comparing the financial results of Novell’s fourth quarters of 2004 and 2005 shows an increase of 418% in Linux revenue to $61m. Novell has proven that this open source business strategy is feasible and profitable. / Dissertation (M-IT)--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Informatics / unrestricted

A major flaw in the academic system, particularly pertaining to computer science, is that it rewards specialisation. The highly competitive quest for new scientific developments, or rather the quest for a better reputation and more funding, forces researchers to specialise in their own fields, leaving them little time to properly explore what others are doing, sometimes even within their own field of interest. Even the peer review process, which should provide the necessary balance, fails to achieve much diversity, since reviews are typically performed by persons who are again specialists in the particular field of the work. Further, software implementations are rarely reviewed, having as a consequence the publishing of untenable results. Unfortunately, these factors contribute to an environment which is not conducive to collaboration, a cornerstone of academia | building on the work of others. This work takes a step back and examines the general landscape of computational intelligence from a broad perspective, drawing on multiple disciplines to formulate a collaborative software platform, which is flexible enough to support the needs of this diverse research community. Interestingly, this project did not set out with these goals in mind, rather it evolved, over time, from something more specialised into the general framework described in this dissertation. Design patterns are studied as a means to manage the complexity of the computational intelligence paradigm in a flexible software implementation. Further, this dissertation demonstrates that releasing research software under an open source license eliminates some of the deficiencies of the academic process, while preserving, and even improving, the ability to build a reputation and pursue funding. Two software packages have been produced as products of this research: i) CILib, an open source library of computational intelligence algorithms; and ii) CiClops, which is a virtual laboratory for performing experiments that scale over multiple workstations. Together, these software packages are intended to improve the quality of research output and facilitate collaboration by sharing a repository of simulation data, statistical analysis tools and a single software implementation. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Computer Science / Unrestricted

The rate at which technology evolves by far outpaces the rate at which methods are developed to prevent and prosecute digital crime. This unfortunate situation may potentially allow computer criminals to commit crimes using technologies for which no proper forensic investigative technique currently exists. Such a scenario would ultimately allow criminals to go free due to the lack of evidence to prove their guilt. A solution to this problem would be for law enforcement agencies and governments to invest in the research and development of forensic technologies in an attempt to keep pace with the development of digital technologies. Such an investment could potentially allow new forensic techniques to be developed and released more frequently, thus matching the appearance of new computing devices on the market. A key element in improving the situation is to produce more research results, utilizing less resources, and by performing research more efficiently. This can be achieved by improving the process used to conduct forensic research. One of the problem areas in research and development is the development of prototypes to prove a concept or to test a hypothesis. An in-depth understanding of the extremely technical aspects of operating systems, such as file system structures and memory management, is required to allow forensic researchers to develop prototypes to prove their theories and techniques. The development of such prototypes is an extremely challenging task. It is complicated by the presence of minute details that, if ignored, may have a negative impact on the accuracy of results produced. If some of the complexities experienced in the development of prototypes could simply be removed from the equation, researchers may be able to produce more and better results with less effort, and thus ultimately speed up the forensic research process. This dissertation describes the development of a platform that facilitates the rapid development of forensic prototypes, thus allowing researchers to produce such prototypes utilizing less time and fewer resources. The purpose of the platform is to provide a set of rich features which are likely to be required by developers performing research prototyping. The proposed platform contributes to the development of prototypes using fewer resources and at a faster pace. The development of the platform, as well as various considerations that helped to shape its architecture and design, are the focus points of this dissertation. Topics such as digital forensic investigations, open-source software development, and the development of the proposed forensic platform are discussed. Another purpose of this dissertation is to serve as a proof-of-concept for the developed platform. The development of a selection of forensics prototypes, as well as the results obtained, are also discussed. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Computer Science / unrestricted