MARKOS – The Market for Open Source An Intelligent Virtual Open Source Marketplace

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MARKOS BACKGROUND

The request for global knowledge of available, reusable code, algorithms and knowledge in Open Source Software (OSS) projects highlights the need to free the software analysts and developers from the technological barriers caused by the het­erogeneity of approaches adopted by each OSS project to provide similar information on the software characteristics. Technology heterogeneity is not the only obstacle. Strong legal competencies are required for evaluating how to combine soft­ware components adopting different licences.

In this context, the MARKOS project aims to create a prototype of an interactive application and a Linked Data API providing an integrated view and semantic query features on the OSS projects available on the web, focusing on functional, struc­tural and licensing aspects of software code.

A TYPICAL MARKOS USE-CASE

Currently, the web offers several code search tools, which index Open Source projects to allow a software engineer to search and analyze the source code published on the web.

Nevertheless, such services are mainly based on the textual representation of the code. Limited support is provided, for example, to search for a specific class or a specific package (i.e. the static semantics of the code), or to analyse the depen dency between components made available by dif­ferent pro jects. Moreover, there is limited support to highlight licensing incompatibilities.

Imagine for instance a software developer that needs an Open Source version of a software component implementing a piece of functionality represented by a standard interface or API. The desired component could be a single class, such as an imple­mentation of the Java interface java.util. list, or the implemen­tation of a full API such as the Java™ JDBC API identified by the package names java.sql and javax.sql.

With current tools it is difficult for the developers to distin­guish projects that only use a specific code from projects that implement it. Due to the intricacy of dependencies between different projects and the heterogeneity of licence models it is also more challenging to judge whether a project suffers of any legal infringement.

Thanks to its software analysis capabilities MARKOS will be able to recognize software components of different projects that import and extend the same interfaces or API. It will show the dependencies between components coming from differ­ent projects. Moreover, it will automatically analyse possible licence violations providing legal argumentations, explaining the reason of such an infringement.

EXPECTED IMPACT

The MARKOS system itself will be an Open Source Software, which, thanks to the offered features, is expected to facilitate software development based on the Open Source paradigm in a global context.

The MARKOS project is expected to give a considerable contri­bution in terms of: § enabling software developers to use an intuitive and ad­

vanced searching platform with an advanced service front­end allowing the easy identification of the more suitable Open Source solutions needed;

§ providing the analysis of code dependencies, software structures, and potential license infringements at a global level instead of within single projects;

§ facilitating the publication of the description of Open Source Software as Linked Data and the production of new tools for software analysis and development that leverage this semantic data;

§ allowing a faster adoption and integration of Open Source components and libraries, mitigating issues related to licensing incompatibility;

§ strengthening the European community of Open Source de­velopers, as it will increase quality of Open Source Software, reducing time to market/use and establishing a validated path to integrate Open Source components among them and without the risks linked to complex and incompatible licensing.

SUSTAINABILITY OF THE MARKOS PROJECT

The MARKOS project is expected to support analysts and de­velopers in research and collaboration and to be sustainable after the end of the project. To do this, a well-defined path is put in place, including:

Facts § 30 Months Project § 7 Partners in 5 Countries § Over 3,5 Million of potential users

registered Source Forge and BerliOS

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The Validation Process

The MARKOS system will be validated in the project partners’ environments and then directly in the Open Source developer communities that the project seeks to support, such as BerliOS and SourceForge.net. This assessment is focused not only on the fulfillment of the project scientific and technical challenges, but also conducting a fit-for-purpose evaluation that assesses the MARKOS system in real life scenarios.

This fit-for-purpose evaluation is going to be conducted in dif­ferent workshops by selected groups of MARKOS users, upon real life situations for the development of OSS products.

Other European projects creating or using Open Source software are welcome to publish their results utilizing the MARKOS repository or to retrieve adequate software compo­nents utilizing the MARKOS service front­end and Linked Data API. MARKOS will additionally develop and provide an ontol­ogy describing the functional, structural and licenses aspects of software components. This ontology can be used by other European projects for the description of their components and improves with respect to their experience.

A wide Dissemination strategy

MARKOS project results are addressed to different target groups, such as the scientific community/academia, industrial companies in the sector, public administrations, policy makers and general media. A wide dissemination strategy is planned accordingly, including: § the MARKOS project website with updated information on

the project progress and the main achieved results; § monthly updates on SourceForge.net and Slashdot.org with

43 Million unique visitors per month; § publication of scientific papers on high impact international

journals and conference proceedings, as well as participa­tion in international conferences;

§ articles in technical online media and OSS online services and newsletters;

§ meaningful linkages to other EU similar projects and initia­tives;

§ promotion of project results through the partners’ web­sites, newsletters and other communication channels such as SourceForge.net and Fraunhofer FOKUS test beds and laboratories, whose goal is to bring together customers, vendors, and administrations to discuss IT strategies and solutions.

Exploitation of project results

For a successful commercial uptake of the project results and the developed system after the project, the MARKOS consor­tium is forging a specific exploitation plan lasting for the com­plete lifecycle of the project. The pillars are: § the analysis on economic forces acting on each actor of the

business scenario, aimed at highlighting potential strengths and weaknesses in the relationship between them, identify­ing collaboration spaces and new research development to be taken up by the OSS community;

§ individual exploitation strategies on how to capitalise on the project’s achievements, customised according to the field of interest of each partner;

§ a strong input to community building activities along the life of the project, aimed at creating a sustainable community of developers for maintaining and further developing the MARKOS system after the end of the project. This includes the registration of the project on one of more OSS reposito­ries, such as SourceForge.net or BerliOS.

How to participateInterested parties, EU projects or other organisations are welcome to participate in the planned project workshops. They are encouraged to access the project website for regu­lar news and updates: www.markosproject.eu

For other forms of participation such as validation activi­ties, please contact the project coordinator or the technical manager.

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PARTNERS

ContactSilke Cuno M. A.Project CoordinatorFraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUSsilke.cuno@fokus.fraunhofer.de

Dr. Klaus–Peter EckertProject CoordinatorFraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUSklaus­peter.eckert@fokus.fraunhofer.de

Dr. Francesco Torelli Technical ManagerEngineering Ingegneria Informatica Spafrancesco.torelli@eng.it

www.markosproject.eu

MARKOS is a Collaborative Project (STREP), financed by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, Area “ICT”, Activity 1.2 "Cloud Computing, Internet of Services and Advanced Soft­ware Engineering”.