Free and Open Source Software Release Management

Abstract

The use of free and open source software (FOSS) is increasingly spreading by the day throughout the world; because the basic principle of this software based on the freedom of users to run, copy, distribute, modify and improve the software. Since FOSS software enables the freedom access to source code; this may have encouraged a large number of users to participate in the development with the original developers of these softwares by sending their feedback to improve the original version of the software. Most of FOSS softwares face challenges related to the coordination between developers during the release preparations; since it is difficult to predict what newer versions might include and whether these newer versions will continue to support the business needs. Also most of FOSS developers did not create documentation whether for users or developers; as a result this creates a problem when developing newer releases of FOSS softwares. The main objective of this research is to investigate the release management processes for developing FOSS applications, through the identification of the basic steps and stages to manage the development of FOSS releases, accordingly a practical case study had been implemented and deployed on the computer centers of Sudanese universities; the main idea was to implement these release management processes for releasing one of existing FOSS applications, then determine the main results and the problems that encountered during the development at these universities centers. Timetable Management System (TMS) was chosen to be developed by these Sudanese universities centers. TMS was based on FOSS using PHP language for designing pages and MySQL database, the first version had been developed in Sudan University of Science and Technology. The time based release strategy had been used on this practical case study to establish better planning for producing the second version of the TMS. The main results from this case study shown that; although there was delay in the interaction with the participants during the development phase, it was good idea to start the development of FOSS applications on these Sudanese universities, through their response by participating and success in the development of this system.