XVII International Free Software Workshop (WSL 2016) - Call for Tools

PRESENTATION

Nowadays, Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is an imperative underpinning of every organization. A wide variety of high quality FLOSS applications is available today, ranging from infrastructure software and development tools to end-user applications. Furthermore, the Free Software movement has led to changes in adopted licensing policies, economic models and communication/cooperation processes, just to mention a few. Presently, FLOSS constitutes a major tool and/or research subject both in Computer Science and Social Science fields.

The Workshop on Free Software (WSL) is a scientific meeting held as part of the International Free Software Forum (FISL) -- one of the most important FLOSS conferences in the world. Since 2000, WSL and FISL take place annually in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

WSL aims to foster the discussion on the state-of-the-art of the development, evaluation, and adoption of FLOSS in several scenarios. The major workshop's goals include: narrowing the relationship between FLOSS comunities and academia; eliciting cooperation opportunities between FLOSS and other disciplines/research fields; identify current challenges when designing, developing, and adopting FLOSS in diverse society sectors; and promote the discussion of future research directions.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

If you describe a software in a paper, you allows for users to do reference the software by referencing the paper. The paper also ensures the software described was peer-reviewed, is consistent with the principles of FLOSS, and the source code will be preserved and accessible for a long period.

All FLOSS software with nontrivial uses and applications are welcome for submission to the WSL. In follow we provide a list far from being exhaustive with some types of software to be accepted in this track: libraries, frameworks, IDE, CMS, compilers, software for education, database, servers, text editors, multimedia software, Linux distributions, and many others.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

Papers must be written in English, Portuguese, or Spanish; and must conform to SBC formatting guidelines, available here. Papers must be submitted as PDF (Portable Document Format) files by using EasyChair. The papers selected must be presented in workshop in order to be published in WSL repository.

Submitted papers to WSL call of papers must be 8-16 pages length, including abstract, figures, and references.

In addition, articles describing software must meet certain requirements:

• The software should be available under any license recognized as FLOSS. We recommend the licenses from Popular Licenses category provide in this page by the Open Source Initiative, but software under other FLOSS licenses may also be accepted;
• The source code of the software must be available for public access on the Internet;
• The version of the code described in the paper will be preserved in Zenodo repository (only in the final version of the paper);
• The paper must contain a "Metadata" section before the Introduction with the following information about the software and the source code:
  
  • Version described in the paper:
  • License:
  • Link to source code repository:
  • Link to Zenodo (only in final version):
  • Link to project website:
  • Link to communication channel:
  • Programming languages utilized:
  • Dependencies:
  • Operating systems compatible:
  • List of contributors:
• The article must contain a section before the Conclusion describing in details the process of build/deploy and the installation of the software.

It is suggested for the authors to write sections of the paper describing use cases of the software as well as details about motivation, comparisons to other software for the same purpose, release cycle, infrastructure development, quality management, and others.

In order to facilitate the review process, authors may (not required) send additional resources that will allow easy testing or viewing the operations of the software. If the authors provide it, the resources will be added to Zenodo repository. Allowed resources are:

• Video;
• Executable;
• Virtual machine;
• Docker image.

All submitted papers will be reviewed by, at least, 2 program committee members. For each accepted paper, the authors must define one presenter, who will receive a promotional code to register free of charge for FISL. Accommodation and transportation expenses are not funded by FISL or by the WSL. The papers must be presented in the WSL technical sessions.

IMPORTANT DATES

• Paper submission due: April 10 May 1
• Notification to authors: May 15 June 10
• Camera Ready due: May 22 June 17
• WSL: July 13-16