OpenIoT & ELC Europe 2016

Mobile phones last for months before turning obsolete these days. Planes, trains, or power stations, to name a few, face possible lifespans of ten, twenty or even more years. Increasing amounts of open source software create commonalities between IT and industrial domains.

Drastic differences in innovation cycles translate into problems in software maintenance, but the long-term aspects also raise questions like how to ensure reproducibility of development environments over decades, or how to deal with product lines caused by hardware changes.

We discuss technological strategies for various different maintenance and architectural objectives, and evaluate approaches that are commonly used in industry. We highlight benefits and drawbacks of different technologies, and argue how processual approaches can help OSS communities and industrial users to better align their needs.