Code ownership

This article is about a term used during software development. For the actual ownership of software, see Intellectual property rights.

In software engineering, code ownership is a term used to describe control of an individual software developer or a development team over source code modifications of a module or a product.

Definitions

While the term is very popular, there is no universally accepted definition of it. Koana et al. (2024), in their literature review found 28 different definitions, and classified them as follows:

• Psychological ownership is a feeling by the developer of ownership and pride in the particular element of the project;
• Corporeal ownership is a set of formal or informal rules defining responsibility for a particular software piece. The rules depend on the development approach taken by the team, but generally can be partitioned along the lines of "what is being owned?" / "who owns it?" / "what is the degree of control?":

Authorship

Some researchers also use the term to describe the authorship of software (identifying who wrote a particular line of software). Koana et al. state that this is a different, although related, meaning, as the code owner might not be original author of the software piece.

Sources

• Koana, Umme Ayman; Le, Quang Hy; Rahman, Shadikur; Carlson, Chris; Chew, Francis; Nayebi, Maleknaz (2024-09-27). "Examining ownership models in software teams". Empirical Software Engineering. 29 (6). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. arXiv:2405.15665. doi:10.1007/s10664-024-10538-5. ISSN 1382-3256.
• Metiu, Anca (2006). "Owning the Code: Status Closure in Distributed Groups". Organization Science. 17 (4). INFORMS: 418–435. ISSN 1047-7039. JSTOR 25146047. Retrieved 2024-11-04.