JCSE, vol. 8, no. 1, pp.57-63, March, 2014

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5626/JCSE.2014.8.1.57

Addressing User Requirements in Open Source Software: The Role of Online Forums

Arif Raza, Luiz Fernando Capretz
Department of Computer Software Engineering, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan / Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

Abstract: User satisfaction has always been important in the success of software, regardless of whether it is closed and proprietary or open source software (OSS). OSS users are geographically distributed and include technical as well as novice users. However, it is generally believed that if OSS was more usable, its popularity would increase tremendously. Hence, users and their requirements need to be addressed in the priorities of an OSS environment. Online public forums are a major medium of communication for the OSS community. The research model of this work studies the relationship between user requirements in open source software and online public forums. To conduct this research, we used a dataset consisting of 100 open source software projects in different categories. The results show that online forums play a significant role in identifying user requirements and addressing their requests in open source software.

Keyword: Open source software; Users; Requirements; Online forums; Empirical analysis

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