Local Installation instructions for OpenReq "Core" and other practical documents needed to implement it locally

[richlysakowski]

On the main website and here, there is no top-level repository with simple installation instructions for installing locally.

WHAT I TRIED:
I searched for "intelligent open source requirements management" software, and found OpenReq.

This is a serious BUG in strategy, a design and requirements FLAW that has not been met to achieve the goal of wide-spread adoption of the R&D funds expended by the EU.

However, upon searching I could not find a main repository or website with instructions for downloading and installing locally on Windows 10 Professional. I found a lot of specifications.

Why is there no link to the final software product and related software deliverables?

Why is there no link on the main home page "Download and Install"?

[LloydThinks]

Hi @richlysakowski, thank you for your interest in the OpenReq project!

I think there is a misunderstanding. The main technical output of the OpenReq project is not a desktop application, but rather a server architecture composed of microservices. As this project was developed in collaboration with many universitie, industry partners, and open-call participants, the project was developed as separate dockerized containers, each of which contains their own functionality. As with any microservices architecture, you need to get most of the infrastructure running before the individual components can function. This was a direct design of the OpenReq project: we created complex intelligent technology at the cutting edge of research in the Requirements Engineering domain, and that technology was built on top of other intelligent technology. As a result, most of the infrastructure depends on other parts of the infrastructure.

Maintaining a running server architecture is a lot of work. At the close of the OpenReq project, our primary industry partner in charge of maintaining the infrastructure no longer had funding to continue that maintenance. In response, I personally transferred the infrastructure to a new host, getting each of the microservices running again. This allowed our partners to keep using the infrastructure and research to continue on these technologies. This also served as proof of the transferability of the developed server architecture as a main output of the OpenReq project.

After one year of maintaining the server infrastructure, most of the OpenReq partners had stopped using the central infrastructure, and instead chose to strip the functionality they wanted for their own research or industry applications, and host that in their own internal infrastructures. This again showed the success of the microservices infrastructure: partners could take the functionality they wanted and integrate it into their own environments, without much effort. However, at this point, we had no more funding to maintain the running infrastructure, and so we took it down. The primary technology outcomes of OpenReq, however, are all available in these GitHub repositories. Additionally, with enough technical knowledge and effort, it would be possible to get the entire infrastructure running again. However, this is not the main desire of most interested parties, who instead choose to take individual components and algorithms, and repurpose them for their interests. This again, requires technical knowledge of the desired technologies.

With such a complex system and varying needs of potential interested stakeholders, there is no single README or "steps to install" that could suffice in the case of the large infrastructure developed by OpenReq. Particularly since the development on the technologies and infrastructure stopped 3 years ago, it is now the case that many parts of the OpenReq server architecture have decayed, and require updates to newer versions of libraries as well as entirely new server technologies. Like any large software project, an investment of resources is needed to get it running again as it was when the OpenReq project ended.

I hope that clears up any misunderstandings about the OpenReq project and its technology outcomes. We consider the project a major success, and we hope future researchers and practitioners continue to gain value from its individual components.

Lloyd