Introduction to 12th workshop on distributed software development, software ecosystems and systems-of-systems (WDES@ECSA 2018)

Paper in proceeding, 2018

Systems-of-Systems (SoS) have become increasingly complex and used in highly distributed, dynamic, and even open environments. SoS refer to evolving software systems, where constituent systems work cooperatively to fulfill complex missions, facing software architecture researchers/practitioners with substantial challenges. In parallel, Software Ecosystem (SECO) has become an important research topic, addressing social and business issues along with technical aspects of software architectures. SoS and SECO are closely related, also naturally distributed so as the distribution of development teams, along with the inherent difficulties of coordination and communication. In this scenario, Distributed Software Development (DSD) deals with distributed resources to reduce cost and reach new IT markets. Inherent problems and challenges of software engineering are amplified and become more critical when those three topics need to be analyzed together. WDES 2018 will provide researchers and practitioners with a forum to exchange ideas and experiences, analyze R&D issues, discuss promising solutions, and propose theoretical foundations for architecting complex systems, inspiring visions for the future of software engineering for SoS, SECO, and DSD.