To redefine ecosystem health, or not to redefine? A view of scientific knowledge on the ‘software ecosystem health’ concept

The classic argument of the business ecosystems is that the survival of a single actor depends on the whole network and its performance instead of solely on the actor’s own choices and actions. The ‘ecosystem health’ is a crucial concept in the domain of ecosystem research: “if the ecosystem is healthy, individual participants will thrive; if the ecosystem is unhealthy, individual participants will suffer”. Three health measures have been defined for business ecosystems: productivity, robustness to external shocks, and niche creation that helps the ecosystem to renew. Similarly, the ecosystem health is seen as the indicator of well-being of a software ecosystem. This presentation discusses the current knowledge of software ecosystem health. In summary, we show that the view on what constitutes ecosystem health is scattered and the field needs redefinition – it is argued that the new direction of software ecosystem health should be sought in collaboration with industrial experts.