The Second International Conference on Open Source Systems

June 8-10 2006, Grand Hotel, Como, Italy

Foundation Conference of the proposed Open Source Software Working Group within the IFIP TC2

Free and Open Source Software (OSS) development continues to emerge, grow, and spread as a global phenomenon that spans and connects culture, technology, and organization. OSS is one of the most exciting and controversial technologies of modern times that is stimulating scholarly research and popular debate in many disciplines. OSS research studies are now found in diverse disciplines including anthropology, economics, education, law, management of technology, organization science, political science, public policy, sociology, and the visual and performing arts, as well as computer supported cooperativework, human-computer interaction, information systems, and software engineering. Such diversity gives rise to recognizing OSS as an interdisciplinary information technology that both depends on and stimulates social relationships in the organizations and project communities that develop, deploy, and adapt OSS.

The goal of OSS2006 is to provide an international forum where a diverse audience of OSS researchers and practitioners can come together to examine the culture, technology, and organization of OSS systems, work practices, development processes, community dynamics, tools and applications.

OSS2006 will bring together people from academia, industry, and public administration to share their experiences, ideas, and concerns, as well as provide an archival source of important papers addressing OSS topics within or across disciplines. The conference will consist of research papers presentations, workshops, tutorials, panels, and project demonstrations.

CONFERENCE TOPICS

The conference will stress practical applications and implications of OSS, as well as scholarly research studies.
Conference topics include, but are not limited to:

Software engineering perspectives on OSS development, e.g.,

• OSS architecture, configuration and release management
• OSS processes, practices, tools or project repositories
• Testing and assuring OSS quality
• Maintaining high quality OSS documentation
• Mining and analyzing OSS project repositories
• Patterns of success and failure in developing OSS

Studies of OSS deployment, e.g.,

• Case studies of OSS deployment, success and failure
• OSS in Arts or Games
• OSS in the public sector: Government, Education, Health Care or Defense

Social science perspectives on OSS development, e.g.,

• Diversity and international participation in OSS projects
• Beliefs, values and norms affecting OSS development
• Collaboration, control or conflict in OSS projects
• Learning and knowledge sharing in OSS projects
• Dynamics of OSS project teams
• Ethnographic studies of OSS projects

External perspectives and influences on OSS, e.g.,

• Diffusion and adoption of OSS innovations
• Socio-technical networks facilitating OSS development and deployment
• Economic analysis of OSS
• OSS and alternative intellectual property regimes