Software ecosystems bring value by integrating software projects related to a given domain, such as Linux distributions integrating upstream open-source projects or the Android ecosystem for mobile Apps. Since each project within an ecosystem may potentially have its release cycle and roadmap, this creates an enormous burden for users who must expend the effort to identify and install compatible project releases from the ecosystem manually. Thus, many ecosystems, such as the Linux distributions, take it upon them to release a polished, well-integrated product to the end-user. However, the body of knowledge lacks empirical evidence about the coordination and synchronization efforts needed at the ecosystem level to ensure such federated releases. This paper empirically studies the strategies used to synchronize releases of ecosystem projects in the context of the OpenStack ecosystem, in which a central release team manages the six-month release cycle of the overall OpenStack ecosystem product. We use qualitative analysis on the release team’s IRC-meeting logs that comprise two OpenStack releases (one-year long). Thus, we identified, cataloged, and documented ten major release synchronization activities, which we further validated through interviews with eight active OpenStack senior practitioners (members of either the release team or project teams). Our results suggest that even though an ecosystem’s power lies in the interaction of inter-dependent projects, release synchronization remains a challenge for both the release team and the project teams. Moreover, we found evidence (and reasons) of multiple release strategies co-existing within a complex ecosystem.

软件生态系统通过集成与给定领域相关的软件项目来带来价值，例如集成上游开源项目的Linux发行版或用于移动应用程序的Android生态系统。由于生态系统中的每个项目都可能具有其发布周期和路线图，因此，这给用户带来了沉重的负担，他们必须花费更多的精力手动确定并安装来自生态系统的兼容项目版本。因此，许多生态系统（例如Linux发行版）都将它们推向最终用户，以发布精美的，高度集成的产品。但是，知识体系缺乏有关确保生态系统级别的联邦释放所需的协调和同步工作的经验证据。本文从经验上研究了在OpenStack生态系统的上下文中用于同步生态系统项目发布的策略，在该策略中，一个中央发布团队管理整个OpenStack生态系统产品的六个月发布周期。我们对发布团队的IRC会议日志进行定性分析，该日志包含两个OpenStack版本（一年）。因此，我们确定，分类并记录了十项主要的发行同步活动，我们通过与八位活跃的OpenStack高级从业人员（发行团队或项目团队的成员）进行了访谈，进一步验证了这些活动。我们的结果表明，即使生态系统的力量在于相互依赖的项目之间的交互，发布同步对于发布团队和项目团队仍然是一个挑战。而且，