A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Healthy until otherwise proven: Some proposals for renewing research of software ecosystem health
Authors: Hyrynsalmi S., Ruohonen J., Seppänen M.
Editors: Bram Adams et al.
Conference name: International Workshop on Software Health
Publisher: IEEE Computer Society
Publication year: 2018
Book title : Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Software Health
Journal name in source: Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering
First page : 18
Last page: 24
Number of pages: 7
ISBN: 978-1-4503-5730-2
ISSN: 2333-7400
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3194124.3194128
The software ecosystem has become a central conceptualisation for characterising the contemporary software business world. To understand and evaluate ecosystems, the concept of 'ecosystem health' was borrowed from the field of biology. In a 'healthy' ecosystem, the participants will flourish and, vice versa, suffer in an unhealthy one. Yet, there is a lack of empirical validations for the current approach as well as certain limitations regarding the concept. This paper will present a critique on current ecosystem health measurement and evaluation approaches. In addition, there is discussion on three proposals that could help to refocus the academic research on software ecosystem health.