On December 2, I will give a keynote at the Software Evolution @ Lille event. This is a research-oriented event bringing together three different workshops around the topic of software evolution.

This keynote will be an evolved version of the one I previously held at ECOOP 2014 and will be placed within the context of software evolution research.

Software evolution was laid out as a field several decades ago. I still remember that in my very first workshop I got to meet Meir Lehman, the parent of this field who together with László Bélády coined the now famous laws of software evolution. While I think great things came from this field, I believe we now need a different perspective. In a way, the field of software evolution tends to take a stand similar to ecology: it studies the phenomenon without influencing it much, or not at all. However, the rate and the way in which software gets developed, requires us to take a stand and actively influence the actual course of our future. Hence, the need for software environmentalism.