16-01-2013, 12:56 PM
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IN SOCIAL MEDIA
INTRODUCTION
By the existing social media boom on Internet, sharing acquaintance has become further collective and easy accessible.
In the field of system science, the systems thinking methodology is practiced before the traditional approach, in order to get a better understandings of a problem or for creating a model of a specific system. The proposed model in this paper uses a systems thinking approach to understand the combined character of two systems. One system is the social network itself and the other system is the open source development community. A model of this type is needed, as it is useful to envisage and find out optimal ways of solving problem by the open source development community. This model can be used to identify, and counteract, possible negative effects of the two systems working in parallel.
OPEN SOURCE DEVELOPMENT
While the phenomenon of open source software development has recently been given a lot of media attention, the basic concept is actually much older in its origins. From the very beginning of computer science, it has been a common practice among researchers, students, and engineers to share source code [3] [5].
As the open source software development community is expanding, there is a prominent possibility of using social media tools for them to share their knowledge. The model proposed here is intended to be helpful for decision making in such situations if any sensitive issues within systems arise.
SYSTEMS THINKING
Why Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is needed to bridge the borders between different disciplines, as a common language for knowledge exchange. In system science there can be issues that affects or are affected by the surrounding environment. Such issues, where the environment can be stable or dynamic [1], systems thinking are very handy while dealing with such issues. However the target of the systems thinking remains somehow the same regardless of what kind of system it is while trying to predict an issue influenced by another system [3].
Emerging Properties and Synergy
Emerging properties are considered to be the unexpected behaviors that stem from interaction between the components of a system and between the components and its environment [6]. Although the role is often unappreciated, synergy can be considered as one of the core concepts of systems sciences. It can be defined as a combined action of different entities of the system where the output or final outcome is favored over the difference of individual action of any entity.