Nowadays,
the use of agile methodologies (AM) in Global Software Development
(GSD) -- known as AGSD -- is increasingly common. However, AM and GSD
are not completely compatible. On the one hand, in AM people
interactions (face-to-face) are preferred over document-based
communications to share knowledge. On the other hand, in GSD knowledge
sharing is conducted through documents to minimize the effect of the
inherent four distances (physical, temporal, language and cultural).
This means that tacit knowledge is preferred in AM and explicit
knowledge is preferred in GSD. These differences between AM and GSD
affect many aspects of software development, for instance: Architectural
Knowledge Management. According to the literature, in AGSD it is
preferred to convey Architectural Knowledge (AK) by frequent
interactions across sites through unstructured and textual electronic
media (UTEM) (chats, emails, forums, etc.), that is, AK is articulated
in these media. UTEM leave a textual record of the transmitted
information, thus leaving an unstructured log of the shared AK of the
project. In this paper we present an empirical study to understand AK
articulation in UTEM in AGSD teams. Our results consist of an ontology
that represents the involved aspects in AK articulation in UTEM in AGSD
teams. Additionally, we identified eleven categories of interactions
across sites through UTEM, where requirements and coding themes are
prominent. Finally, we found that AK in UTEM is perceived as important,
regardless the interaction frequency. These results lead us to think
that a tool to structure and exploit AK in UTEM is needed in AGSD, in
order to bridge the gap between AM and GSD.