Development Platforms as a Niche for Software Companies in Open Source Software

As long as information systems do not become overly large and while they address a well-known domain, they can be controlled by engineering staff. Nevertheless, when dealing with large-scale, complex, or innovative information systems, it can be difficult to separate design issues and to formulate a meaningful information system proposal. In such a context, platforms for software engineering appear to be a promising approach. In this paper, we propose to view development platforms as a major opportunity for Open Source Software and Open Formats.