Towards an Understanding of Developer Experience-Driven Transparency in Software Ecosystems

Software ecosystems (SECO) have become a dominant paradigm in the software industry, enabling third-party developers to co-create value through complementary components and services. While Developer Experience (DX) is increasingly recognized as critical for sustainable SECO, transparency remains an underexplored factor shaping how developers perceive and interact with ecosystems. Existing studies acknowledge transparency as essential for trust, fairness, and engagement, yet its relationship with DX has not been systematically conceptualized. Hence, this work aims to advance the understanding of transparency in SECO from a developer-centered perspective. To this end, we propose SECO-TransDX (Transparency in Software Ecosystems from a Developer Experience Perspective), a conceptual model that introduces the notion of DX-driven transparency. The model identifies 63 interrelated concepts, including conditioning factors, ecosystem procedures, artifacts, and relational dynamics that influence how transparency is perceived and constructed during developer interactions. SECO-TransDX was built upon prior research and refined through a Delphi study with experts from academia and industry. It offers a structured lens to examine how transparency mediates DX across technical, social, and organizational layers. For researchers, it lays the groundwork for future studies and tool development; for practitioners, it supports the design of trustworthy, developer-centered platforms that improve transparency and foster long-term engagement in SECO.