The need for effort estimation models for open source software projects

Open source software(OSS), be it products or tools, are being adopted at a fairly rapid pace in commercial organizations. In fact many firms such as IBM and Sun are even 'opening' up their once proprietary software products and making the source code available. This phenomenon may have a profound effect on the various software engineering methodologies and practices as well as project management activities. Given the difficulty in managing resources in closed source projects, planning and delivery for OSS projects will be an even bigger challenge. In this position paper, we describe the need for new effort estimation models for the development of OSS projects and how this will be required for future project management activities. We outline some of the guidelines to build these cost estimation models and some issues that arise in the verification and validation of these cost models.