Open CrowdRE Challenges in Software Ecosystems

David Johnson, James Tizard, Daniela E. Damian, Kelly Blincoe, Tony Clear

Abstract: CrowdRE has been argued to comprise four main activities: motivating crowd members; eliciting feedback; analysing feedback and monitoring context and usage data. However, determining requirements within a software ecosystem poses demands beyond those found by a single product owner. In this paper, we describe open challenges for CrowdRE in handling the many, competing and heterogeneous sources of RE data in a software ecosystem. We illustrate the case of Xero ecosystem - a global accounting software company - as an ecosystem platform provider and Figured - a developer of a farming industry application and one of Xero's partner apps.