Software Reuse for Sustainable Development: Implications of Vulnerability Interdependency

The achievement of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) often requires stakeholders to assemble digital solutions from reusable software packages. However, software reuse increases the risk for vulnerabilities buried deep in reused packages to diffuse widely. To understand the benefits and risks of software reuse in the SDG context, we draw from frugal innovation and bricolage to theorize the discovery and the diffusion of software vulnerabilities. Based on the theoretical development, we designed and implemented an agent-based simulation model wherein the diffusion of vulnerabilities is a collective-level consequence emerging from individual-level efforts to benefit from SDG-related software reuse. The simulation model was calibrated with field data from public repositories for SDG-related projects. Preliminary results showed the promise for the simulation to unravel how stakeholder-related, software-related, and SDG-related factors influence the long-term performance of digital solutions for SDGs.