Towards a guideline-based approach to govern developers in mobile software ecosystems

Abstract

Mobile application developers use repositories to store and reuse resources that support the development process. These repositories can be classified into internal – property of an organization that owns the mobile platform – or external – maintained by developers’ communities in a open-source way. The app store is an example of an internal repository. As examples of external repositories, we can mention Github (code) and Stack Overflow (questions and answers. Such repositories can be used to support keystone’s strategy to open its infrastructure in order to engage developers to meet the users’ demands. This scenario refers to Mobile Software Ecosystem (MSECO) where keystones can use governance models to increase profits and reduce possible risks. However, it is necessary to understand how to monitor the engagement of developers using repositories as sources of information. In other words, it is important to define developers’ governance guidelines to monitor the developer, contributions, technical questions, alignment with the keystone’ goals, and developers’ experience (DX). In this context, the goal of this PhD dissertation is to define a guidelinebased approach to govern developers in an MSECO.