Technical Essays: Software Architecture of 28 Different Open Source Systems

Delft Students on Software Architecture (DESOSA) is a collection of technical essays in which students explore the software architecture of 28 different open source systems. These essays are available as a series of blog posts for easy browsing, besides being available in ebook form as pdf and epub.

These essays were written as part of a master level course on Software Architecture that took place in the spring of 2020. The essays emerged as they were written, with most of them posted in March / April 2020.

In total over 120 students worked in teams of four, studying over 30 different systems. The course is open by design, with students not just learning from the teacher, but primarily from each other and from the wisdom of the open source communities. The course builds on ideas in open learning from (the late) Erik Duval, and on Amy Brown and Greg Wilson’s book series addressing the Architecture of Open Source Applications.

Students could decide for themselves whether to publish their essays, or whether to keep them visible to other students only. The large majority (28 out of 30) of teams decided to make their work public, with the result visible here.