Supporting activity based computing paradigm in global software development

Global software development (GSD) teams have to use multiple tools to perform both complex and even simple tasks involving many context switches that can be frustrating. To lessen these issues, researchers are looking at providing new plug-ins whereas commercial vendors are flooding the market with comprehensive solutions often in the form of platforms. The current file- and application- oriented desktop metaphor can hardly support the collaborative and distributed nature of GSD teams. We assert that the Activity-Based Computing (ABC) paradigm has the potential for addressing the tool support related challenges of GSD. We have been incrementally designing and developing a flexible middleware (ABC4GSD) for supporting ABC in GSD. In this paper we present the theoretical foundations underpinning our approach and the architectural overview of a middleware for supporting ABC in GSD. Moreover, we briefly present a prototype leveraging the features provided by the middleware as a proof of concept.