Analysis & Selection of Requirements Elicitation Techniques for OSSD

Open Source Software development (OSSD) is unlike traditional software development in many aspects. Requirements elicitation is the most critical phase in software development as it is the basis for developing software. The requirements elicitation phase in OSSD is different from traditional software development process and somehow a difficult process as the developer is the only person that has to elicit the requirements and then make the software open for review from the user community. The users can add or modify the product according to their own needs and requirements. The focus of this paper is on the requirements elicitation phase and elicitation techniques for open source software development. In this paper, requirements elicitation phase model for OSSD is proposed as well as best suited requirements elicitation techniques for OSSD are discussed and a framework for choosing and comparing these techniques is developed and the selected techniques for OSS are analyzed in the context of the criteria mentioned in the framework. A formula is proposed using the framework and the proposed model for the requirements elicitation process and selection of techniques for OSSD.