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Software Engineering

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    @kuma Most actually do start by 1 or a few people working on something that interests them. The ones that don't are generally run by companies, and then they'll have the kind of things you're looking for but they may not be public- they may be hidden in whatever document repos the company uses. Commented Jan 19, 2021 at 20:46
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    @kuma Besides, I challenge the idea that you need requirements for a software. And suggest that requirements are for software projects. And that there are many software projects in the making of a software. Of those, only one was the inception, and that one is often the worse documented. You don't see fixing an issue as a project? How about change management? - The issues, in the issue tracker, those are requests for change, they bring new requirements (or remind of old ones in the case of regressions). To implement those changes, we do projects (with design, and testings, programming, etc). Commented Jan 19, 2021 at 21:01
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    @Kaz and that is a problem because? Correct is defined by what users want, not what's written down anywhere. If users are happy with how it works, great. If they aren't then they will communicate the unhappiness. So what the software is doing on a macro scale should be assumed to be correct by default in a popular open source project in the absence of any complaints. Commented Jan 20, 2021 at 3:25
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    Proprietary projects do this too. Windows is full of special cases that are outside the documented requirements because it turns out major program X doesn't follow the documented interface. What matters is usability, not that it matches the document written years ago. Commented Jan 20, 2021 at 3:34
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    @Kaz It is true that without requirement specifications the development can go awry. However, with requirement specifications it can also go awry. It will come down to the discipline of the developer and watchful eye of supervisors of the community at large to keep it line. Anyway, I'm not suggesting to develop software without requirements, but that often the initial effort - let's say proof of concept - does not have well documented requirements, at least not publicly. And that in FLOSS they often specify requirements using using issue trackers, tests and so on. Call it informal if you will. Commented Jan 20, 2021 at 4:36