Call for Papers

Third International ACM Workshop on Software Ecosystems (IWSECO’10)
Managing Innovation Networks through Openness

http://www.softwareecosystems.org/workshop/
October 29th 2010, in Bangkok, Thailand

in conjunction with The International ACM Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems (MEDES 2010)
http://sigappfr.acm.org/MEDES/10/

[please find a note below on the troubles in Bangkok]

Workshop Objective

After a successful workshop in Virginia and another one in Denmark, IWSECO goes to Bangkok in collaboration with ACM MEDES 2010. Software vendors no longer function as independent units, where all customers are end-users, where there are no suppliers, and where all software is built in-house. Instead, software vendors have become networked, i.e., software vendors are depending on (communities of) service and software component suppliers, value-added-resellers, and pro-active customers who build and share customizations. Software vendors now have to consider their strategic role in the software ecosystem to survive. With their role in the software ecosystem in mind, software vendors can become more successful by opening up their business, devising new business models, forging long-lasting relationships with partnership networks, and overcoming technical and social challenges that are part of these innovations. The focus of the first workshop was the definition of the research field. The second workshop’s focus was the ‘ideal’ architecture of a software platform. The third workshop on software ecosystems focuses on the management of software ecosystems, i.e., how a software vendor can manage its network of partners, developers, service deliverers, and other third parties that play a role in the software ecosystem.

Typically, software vendors have several instruments available to them for managing their ecosystem, such as the creation of partnership models or the introduction of component and service certification. The effects of these decisions on the software ecosystem have not yet been made measurable, which can be considered one of the main challenges of the field of software ecosystems. We welcome submissions that specifically address this topic.

A software ecosystem is a set of actors functioning as a unit and interacting with a shared market for software and services, together with the relationships among them. These relationships are frequently underpinned by a common technological platform or market and operate through the exchange of information, resources and artifacts. Several challenges lie in the research area of software ecosystems. To begin with, insightful and scalable modeling techniques for software ecosystems currently do not exist. Furthermore, methods are required that enable software vendors to transform their legacy architectures to accommodate reusability of internal common artifacts and external components and services. Finally, methods are required that support software vendors in choosing survival strategies in software ecosystems.

The Workshop on Software Ecosystems aims to further increase the body of knowledge in this specific area of software reuse and software engineering by providing a forum to exchange ideas and discuss state-of-the-art results. It will build and shape the community of leading practitioners and research experts. Given the relevance of software ecosystems, and the rather unexplored scientific and industry contribution in this field, the workshop will deliver a state-of-the-practice overview of the available knowledge on software ecosystems, as well as an overview of challenges for further research.

Relevant Topics

Submitted papers shall address topics of interest to software ecosystems and software reuse. Topics of interest include, but are certainly not limited to:
* Organizational openness
* Strategic benefits analyses of ecosystem management
* Partner management
* Software development governance
* Software ecosystem modeling
* Software ecosystem practices and experience
* Software business models
* Product software and software licensing
* Economic impact of software ecosystems
* Software ecosystem creation
* Keystone and niche player survival strategies
* Formal modeling of business models Architectural implications of reusability
* API development
* Publishing APIs
* Software product management
* Software product lines
* Software development community management
* Software ecosystem orchestration
* Market-specific domain engineering
* Open source software ecosystems
* Virtualized software enterprises
* API compatibility over subsequent releases

Workshop proceedings

The proceedings of the workshop will be published by ACM. We are in search of a scientific journal for publishing of extended and revised versions of the best papers.

Paper preparation, submission and evaluation

We welcome both research and industry papers to IWSECO. They must be original and not submitted to or accepted by any other conference or journal. To encourage industrial participation we also welcome short industry papers and case studies. Papers should be submitted in electronic form (PDF) using EasyChair:
http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=medes10
The ACM format descriptions can be found here:
http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates
The length of papers is restricted at eight (8) pages.

Expert Meeting

Before the third workshop on software ecosystems, an expert meeting will be organized to further strengthen the community. The expert meeting will be organized to get key figures from industry and academia to discuss the emergent topics in software ecosystems and to further detail the research agenda on software ecosystems. Topics of interest include research funding, ecosystem management, future developments, and ecosystem visualization. Please contact Slinger Jansen (s.jansen@cs.uu.nl) if you wish to attend this meeting.

Organizing Committee

* Slinger Jansen (s.jansen@cs.uu.nl)
* Anthony Finkelstein (a.finkelstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk)
* Jan Bosch (jan@janbosch.com)
* Sjaak Brinkkemper (s.brinkkemper@cs.uu.nl)

Important dates

* 16. July 2010: Deadline for workshop submissions
* 15. August 2010: Notification of authors
* 15. September 2010: Camera-ready papers due
* 29. October 2010: The International Workshop on Software Ecosystems
All deadlines are 23:59 Apia, Samoa time

Program Committee

* Tony Wasserman, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
* Clemens Szyperski, Microsoft Research, USA
* Kari Smolander, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland
* Ernesto Damiani, University of Milan, Italy
* Sten Minor, Software Innovation and Engineering Institute, Sweden
* Bjorn Regnell, Lund University, Sweden
* Samuel Fricker, University of Zurich, Switzerland
* Nilay Oza, VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland
* Inge van de Weerd, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
* Andy Zaidman, Delft University, The Netherlands
* Andreas Metzger, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
* Liming Zhu, University of New South Wales, Australia
* Epaminondas Kapetanios, University of West Minster, United Kingdom
* Michel Chaudron, Leiden University, the Netherlands
* Eetu Luoma, Jyvaskyla University, Finland
* Pasi Tyrväinen, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
* Peter Buxmann, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany
* Walt Scacchi, Institute for Software Research, USA
* Zhigang Zeng, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
* Nan Niu, Mississippi State University, USA

Troubles in Bangkok

Presently, there is some unrest in Bangkok, in what some call the most violent political struggles in Bangkok in two decades. Presently we are following the news closely. If the situation is still unstable at the end of September, we will evade to another location. The workshop will under no circumstances be cancelled.

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