Crowdsourcing for Large-Scale Software Development

Large scale software systems with increasing complexity, variability and uncertainty, brings about grand challenges for traditional software engineering. Recently, crowdsourcing practices in the domain of software development such as Apple App Store and TopCoder have exhibited a promising and viable solution to the issues. The use of a crowd for developing software is predicted to take its place alongside established methodologies, such as agile, global software development, service-oriented computing, and the traditional waterfall. In this chapter, we propose a conceptual framework for the emerging crowdsourcing development methodology. We define the fundamental principles, software architecture, development process, and maturity model of the methodology for crowd workforce motivation, coordination and governance.