Recent developments in software engineering for systems-of-systems and software ecosystems

The increasing scale, distribution, and interconnection of software-intensive systems continue to change the landscape of software engineering research and practice, bringing the diffusion of two similar paradigms: Systems-of-Systems (SoS) and Software Ecosystems (SECO). SoS are characterized by the integration of operationally and managerially independent systems that join together to accomplish a common mission. SoS are central to domains such as transportation, healthcare, defense, smart cities, and industrial automation where heterogeneous systems must cooperate, exchange information, and adapt to evolving missions. On the other hand, SECO describe environments in which a platform and its surrounding network of developers, partners, and organizations co-create software offerings. In SECO, technical artifacts interact with economic and social processes. Modern digital platforms, mobile operating systems, cloud services, and enterprise platforms leverage the capabilities of their ecosystems. This editorial brings together perspectives that explore the shared challenges and complementary insights of SoS and SECO research, aiming to foster a richer understanding of complex software-intensive systems and highlight new opportunities for collaboration across communities. From the long-running, successful series of the International Workshop on Software Engineering for Systems-of-Systems and Software Ecosystems (SESoS), co-located with the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), we present this special issue of the Journal of Systems and Software on the topics of SESoS 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal. From a total of 18 submissions, 7 articles were accepted in this special issue. The articles in this collection address fundamental questions of SoS and SECO, including the evolution of functional relations and experimentation practices, the key factors affecting developer experience, also related to women’s inclusion, as well as the adoption of GenAI-driven approaches for vulnerability fixing. These articles offer updates on current advances of SoS and SECO engineering to researchers and practitioners, highlighting opportunities for future research.