A Nichesourcing Framework applied to Software Sustainability Requirements
Nelly Condorí-Fernández, Patricia Lago, Miguel R. Luaces, Alejandro Catalá · 2019
Background: A software sustainability model is commonly defined in terms of social, economic, technical and environmental dimensions. A key challenge is its characterization regarding sustainability requirements and their dependencies since it depends on, and varies with, the type of software system, and changes in operational contexts. Aims: With the purpose of facilitating the definition of a context-dependent software sustainability model, we introduce nichesourcing as a type of distributed problem-solving paradigm, named crowdsourcing. Method: First a set of nichesourcing requirements were identified, and an existing nichesourcing methodology, originally used in the cultural heritage domain was analyzed with respect to its applicability in Software Engineering. Results: As a result, we propose an adapted methodology for nichesourcing the knowledge on sustainability requirements and their dependencies. Strengths and challenges for crowdsourced software engineering are also identified.