Abstract:
Context: Several large software-developing organizations have adopted Open Source Software development
(OSSD) practices to develop in-house components that are subsequently integrated into products.
This phenomenon is also known as ‘‘Inner Source’’. While there have been several reports of successful
cases of this phenomenon, little is known about the challenges that practitioners face when integrating
software that is developed in such a setting.
Objective: The objective of this study was to shed light on challenges related to building products with
components that have been developed within an Inner Source development environment.
Method: Following an initial systematic literature review to generate seed category data constructs, we
performed an in-depth exploratory case study in an organization that has a significant track record in the
implementation of Inner Source. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with participants
from a range of divisions across the organization. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using
qualitative data analysis techniques.
Results: We have identified a number of challenges and approaches to address them, and compared the
findings to challenges related to development with OSS products reported in the literature. We found that
many challenges identified in the case study could be mapped to challenges related to integration of OSS.
Conclusion: The results provide important insights into common challenges of developing with OSS and
Inner Source and may help organizations to understand how to improve their software development
practices by adopting certain OSSD practices. The findings also identify the areas that need further
research.
