Crowdsourcing software development

Crowdsourcing software development or software crowdsourcing is an emerging area of software engineering. It is an open call for participation in any task of software development, including documentation, design, coding and testing. These tasks are normally conducted by either members of a software enterprise or people contracted by the enterprise. But in software crowdsourcing, all the tasks can be assigned to or are addressed by members of the general public. Individuals and teams may also participate in crowdsourcing contests. Crowdsourcing software development or software crowdsourcing is an emerging area of software engineering. It is an open call for participation in any task of software development, including documentation, design, coding and testing. These tasks are normally conducted by either members of a software enterprise or people contracted by the enterprise. But in software crowdsourcing, all the tasks can be assigned to or are addressed by members of the general public. Individuals and teams may also participate in crowdsourcing contests. Software crowdsourcing may have multiple goals. Quality software: Crowdsourcing organizers need to define specific software quality goals and their evaluation criteria. Quality software often comes from competent contestants who can submit good solutions for rigorous evaluation. Rapid acquisition: Instead of waiting for software to be developed, crowdsourcing organizers may post a competition hoping that something identical or similar has been developed already. This is to reduce software acquisition time. Talent identification: A crowdsourcing organizer may be mainly interested in identifying talents as demonstrated by their performance in the competition. Cost reduction: A crowdsourcing organizer may acquire software at a low cost by paying a small fraction of development cost as the price for award may include recognition awards. Solution diversity: As teams will turn in different solutions for the same problem, the diversity in these solutions will be useful for fault-tolerant computing. Ideas creation: One goal is to get new ideas from contestants and these ideas may lead to new directions. Broadening participation: One goal is to recruit as many participants as possible to get best solution or to spread relevant knowledge.