Open-Source AI-based SE Tools: Opportunities and Challenges of Collaborative Software Learning

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lin, Zhihao, Ma, Wei, Lin, Tao, Zheng, Yaowen, Ge, Jingquan, Wang, Jun, Klein, Jacques, Bissyande, Tegawende, Liu, Yang, Li, Li
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866911832898273280
author Lin, Zhihao
Ma, Wei
Lin, Tao
Zheng, Yaowen
Ge, Jingquan
Wang, Jun
Klein, Jacques
Bissyande, Tegawende
Liu, Yang
Li, Li
author_facet Lin, Zhihao
Ma, Wei
Lin, Tao
Zheng, Yaowen
Ge, Jingquan
Wang, Jun
Klein, Jacques
Bissyande, Tegawende
Liu, Yang
Li, Li
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) have become instrumental in advancing software engineering (SE) tasks, showcasing their efficacy in code understanding and beyond. Like traditional SE tools, open-source collaboration is key in realising the excellent products. However, with AI models, the essential need is in data. The collaboration of these AI-based SE models hinges on maximising the sources of high-quality data. However, data especially of high quality, often holds commercial or sensitive value, making it less accessible for open-source AI-based SE projects. This reality presents a significant barrier to the development and enhancement of AI-based SE tools within the software engineering community. Therefore, researchers need to find solutions for enabling open-source AI-based SE models to tap into resources by different organisations. Addressing this challenge, our position paper investigates one solution to facilitate access to diverse organizational resources for open-source AI models, ensuring privacy and commercial sensitivities are respected. We introduce a governance framework centered on federated learning (FL), designed to foster the joint development and maintenance of open-source AI code models while safeguarding data privacy and security. Additionally, we present guidelines for developers on AI-based SE tool collaboration, covering data requirements, model architecture, updating strategies, and version control. Given the significant influence of data characteristics on FL, our research examines the effect of code data heterogeneity on FL performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_06201
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Open-Source AI-based SE Tools: Opportunities and Challenges of Collaborative Software Learning
Lin, Zhihao
Ma, Wei
Lin, Tao
Zheng, Yaowen
Ge, Jingquan
Wang, Jun
Klein, Jacques
Bissyande, Tegawende
Liu, Yang
Li, Li
Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
Large Language Models (LLMs) have become instrumental in advancing software engineering (SE) tasks, showcasing their efficacy in code understanding and beyond. Like traditional SE tools, open-source collaboration is key in realising the excellent products. However, with AI models, the essential need is in data. The collaboration of these AI-based SE models hinges on maximising the sources of high-quality data. However, data especially of high quality, often holds commercial or sensitive value, making it less accessible for open-source AI-based SE projects. This reality presents a significant barrier to the development and enhancement of AI-based SE tools within the software engineering community. Therefore, researchers need to find solutions for enabling open-source AI-based SE models to tap into resources by different organisations. Addressing this challenge, our position paper investigates one solution to facilitate access to diverse organizational resources for open-source AI models, ensuring privacy and commercial sensitivities are respected. We introduce a governance framework centered on federated learning (FL), designed to foster the joint development and maintenance of open-source AI code models while safeguarding data privacy and security. Additionally, we present guidelines for developers on AI-based SE tool collaboration, covering data requirements, model architecture, updating strategies, and version control. Given the significant influence of data characteristics on FL, our research examines the effect of code data heterogeneity on FL performance.
title Open-Source AI-based SE Tools: Opportunities and Challenges of Collaborative Software Learning
topic Software Engineering
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.06201