Software Engineering for Systems-of-Systems and Software Ecosystems

Software Engineering has faced several challenges in the last decade, especially those related to aspects beyond the technical side. As such, technological, organizational and social aspects should be considered altogether in research and practice in the field so that complexity could be handled in order to provide solution to the existing problems from the software industry demands. In this context, systems-of-systems (SoS) and software ecosystems (SECO) emerged as topics that joined researchers and practitioners interested in understanding how to manage and engineer software-intensive systems within modern, complex, distributed, dynamic, and open environments. An SoS comprises independent constituent systems which work together to fulfill missions driven by architectural concerns. In turn, a SECO consists of a set of actors and artifacts, as well as their relationships, to produce value over a common technology platform driven by external contributions. Both classes of systems have a distributed nature, focus on optimizing the cost-benefit trade-off, and aim to reach global markets. In this special section, we introduce extended versions of two papers selected from the 10th IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Software Engineering for Systems-of-Systems and Software Ecosystems (SESoS 2022). These articles provide researchers and practitioners with advances on the development and evolution of complex software-intensive systems.

Automated summary

In the last decade, software engineering has faced challenges beyond technical aspects. The field now considers technological, organizational, and social aspects together in research and practice to handle complexity and provide solutions to the industry's demands. Systems-of-systems (SoS) and software ecosystems (SECO) have emerged as topics of interest, bringing together researchers and practitioners to understand how to manage and engineer software-intensive systems in modern, complex, distributed, dynamic, and open environments.