front-matter.tex

\title{
    AA: The Algorithmic Autoregulation (Distributed Software Development) Methodology
}

%\author{%
%Renato~Fabbri \and Ricardo~Fabbri \and Vilson~Vieira \and Alexandre~Negr\~{a}o \and Lucas~Zambianchi
%\and Marcos~Mendon\c{c}a \and Daniel~Penalva \and Danilo~Shiga\\[1em]
%\small{
%Instituto de F\'{i}sica de S\~{a}o Carlos (IFSC), Universidade de
%S\~{a}o Paulo (USP), Brazil}\\[0.5em]
%\small{Instituto Polit\'{e}cnico, Universidade do Estado do Rio de
%Janeiro, Nova Friburgo, RJ, Brazil}\\[0.5em]
%\url{LabMacambira.sourceforge.net}.
%}

\author[1,4]{Renato Fabbri\thanks{fabbri@usp.br}}
\author[2,4]{Ricardo Fabbri\thanks{rfabbri@iprj.uerj.br}}
\author[1,4]{Vilson Vieira\thanks{vilson@void.cc}}
\author[4]{Alexandre Negr\~{a}o}
\author[4]{Lucas Zambianchi}
\author[4]{Marcos~Mendon\c{c}a}
\author[3,4]{Daniel Penalva}
\author[4]{Danilo Shiga}
\affil[1]{\small S\~ao Carlos Institute of Physics (IFSC), University of S\~{a}o Paulo (USP), S\~ao Carlos, Brazil}
\affil[2]{\small Polytechnic Institute (IPRJ), State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Nova Friburgo, Brazil}
\affil[3]{\small  Institute for Theoretical Physics (IFT), Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP), S\~ao Paulo, Brazil}
\affil[4]{\small \url{LabMacambira.sourceforge.net}}

\renewcommand\Authands{ and }


\maketitle
%\thispagestyle{empty}

\begin{abstract}
We present a new self-regulating methodology for coordinating distributed team
work called Algorithmic Autoregulation (AA), based on recent social networking
concepts and individual merit. Team members take on an egalitarian role, and
stay voluntarily logged into so-called AA sessions for part of their time (e.g.\
2 hours per day), during which they create periodical logs --- short text
sentences --- they wish to share about their activity with the team. These logs
are publicly aggregated in a Website and are peer-validated after the end of a
session, as in code review.  A short screencast is ideally recorded at the end
of each session to make AA logs more understandable.  This methodology has shown
to be well-suited for increasing the efficiency of distributed teams working on
what is called Global Software Development (GSD), as observed in our experience
in actual real-world situations.  This efficiency boost is mainly achieved through 1)
built-in asyncrhonous on-demand communication, documentation of work products
and processes, and 2) reduced need for central management, meetings or
time-consuming reports. Hence, the AA methodology legitimizes and facilitates
the activities of a distributed software team.  It thus enables other entities
to have a solid means to fund these activities, allowing for new and concrete
business models to emerge for very distributed software development. AA has been
proposed, at its core, as a way of sustaining self-replicating hacker
initiatives. These claims are discussed in a real case-study of running a
distributed free software hacker team called Lab Macambira.  
\end{abstract}