SBSE Challenge

We challenge everyone interested in SBSE to apply their tools by analyzing all or a part of a program from a selected list. We want you to apply your tools and use your SBSE expertise to do interesting things to or with the software, and/or uncover interesting things related to it. The best competition entry will be awarded a 400 USD Amazon gift card plus 1,000 USD cash prize.

Taking part in the challenge

In order to take part, you need to:

  1. Center your investigation on one of the programs that we have selected (see below).
  2. Report your interesting findings in a 6-page paper.
  3. Submit your challenge paper on or before the deadline (May 2, Midnight HST).
  4. If your report is accepted, present your findings at SBSE 2014.

Challenge Programs

Your investigation and report must center on one of the following programs. You are free to concentrate on any particular version available, a comparison of different versions, or a smaller part of one particular version. You may also use associated documents/resources associated with those projects that you find online, e.g. test cases, version histories, information from bug databases etc.

Hadoop (Java)

Hadoop is a distributed computing platform. It includes the Hadoop Distributed Filesystem (HDFS) and an implementation of MapReduce. The Hadoop website has links to the project’s subversion repository, enabling past versions to be analyzed, as well as a bug database and mailing list.

Pidgin (C/C++)

Pidgin is a GUI-based instant messaging (IM) program that works with a number of IM networks. The project website has links to its Mercurial source code repository, as well as a bug database and mailing list.

WordPress (PHP)

WordPress is a popular website CMS/blogging framework written in PHP. The “Core Contributor Handbook” contains links to the project’s repository, bug tracker, and information about unit tests (with PHPUnit)

Your Report

Your report should describe the results of your findings. It should provide a brief introduction to the problem being addressed, the program that you used, your approach/tool, followed by your results, their implications and your conclusions.

Submission Details

The reports must be at most 6 pages long and must conform at time of submission to the SSBSE/Springer LNCS format and submission guidelines. Please submit your challenge report to EasyChair on or before the short paper deadline (May 5). At least one author of each paper is expected to present the results at SSBSE 2014. Papers for the Challenge track are not required to follow the double blind restrictions. All accepted contributions will be published in the conference electronic proceedings.

For more information

If you have any questions about the challenge, e-mail Márcio Barros.