Revisiting the Global Software Engineering Terminology

Even though Global Software Engineering (GSE) has been a research topic of interest for many years, some of its ground terminology is still lacking a unified, coherent, and shared definition and/or classification. The purpose of this report is to collect, outline, and relate several fundamental and discussed terms to form an initial body of knowledge. In particular, we define the diverse flavor of the GSE term relating its variations to the business, project, and team perspectives. Furthermore, we provide an overview of the various uses of the terms cooperation, collaboration, coordination, communication, and awareness taken from the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) tradition. This report represents on the one hand a starting point to help stimulate fruitful discussions in the relevant communities with regards to the more controversial and delicate topics, while on the other hand a coherent reference for those readers seeking clarity.