Virtual communities for software maintenance

This paper recognizes the use of virtual communities for software maintenance. On the basis of an empirical study of a game community, it is suggested that virtual communities can be deployed for the different types of software maintenance - software fault repair, software adaptation and software functionality addition or modification. On a general level, the study suggests that virtual communities are beneficial for the elicitation of changing user needs and requirements and for user-user interaction. More specifically, the study suggests that there are specific benefits of virtual communities in relation to each phase in the maintenance process. Finally, characteristics in terms of ´self-supporting´ and ´self-generating´ are identified as community-specific characteristics that are beneficial to the software maintenance process.