Assessing the health of open source communities

Before contributing to a free or open source software project, understand the developers, leaders, and active users behind it. The computing world lauds many Free/Libre and open source software offerings for both their reliability and features. Successful projects such as the Apache httpd Web server and Linux operating system kernel have made FLOSS a viable option for many commercial organizations. While FLOSS code is easy to access, understanding the communities that build and support the software can be difficult. Despite accusations from threatened proprietary vendors, few continue to believe that open source programmers are all amateur teenaged hackers working alone in their bedrooms. But neither are they all part of robust, well-known communities like those behind Apache and Linux.     

The Tools We Use

What's the state of the art in the tools we use to build software? To answer this question, I let a powerful server build from source code about 7,000 open source packages over a period of a month. The packages I built form a subset of the FreeBSD operating system ports collection, comprising a wide spectrum of application domains: from desktop utilities and biology applications to databases and development tools. The collection is representative of modern software because, unlike say a random sample of SourceForge.net projects, FreeBSD developers have found these programs useful enough to port to FreeBSD.     

Developer Role Evolution in Open Source Software Ecosystem: An Explanatory Study on GNOME

An open source software (OSS) ecosystem refers to an OSS development community composed of many software projects and developers contributing to these projects. The projects and developers co-evolve in an ecosystem. To keep healthy evolution of such OSS ecosystems, there is a need of attracting and retaining developers, particularly project leaders and core developers who have major impact on the project and the whole team. Therefore, it is important to figure out the factors that influence developers’ chance to evolve into project leaders and core developers. To identify such factors, we conducted a case study on the GNOME ecosystem. First, we collected indicators reflecting developers’ subjective willingness to contribute to the project and the project environment that they stay in. Second, we calculated such indicators based on the GNOME dataset. Then, we fitted logistic regression models by taking as independent variables the resulting indicators after eliminating the most collinear ones, and taking as a dependent variable the future developer role (the core developer or project leader). The results showed that part of such indicators (e.g., the total number of projects that a developer joined) of subjective willingness and project environment significantly influenced the developers’ chance to evolve into core developers and project leaders. With different validation methods, our obtained model performs well on predicting developmental core developers, resulting in stable prediction performance (0.770, F-value).     

大型自由和开源软件进化研究

大型自由和开源软件的各种版本源代码和相关开发信息是软件工程研究者研究开源软件项目的重要数据源.归纳开源软件项目的数据源及数据收集方法,给出Linux、FreeBSD操作系统内核的软件进化的分析方法和相关分析结果.重点分析了系统和主要子系统的复杂性进化趋势及推动进化主要原因,提出了快速测算大型开源软件复杂性的方法.得出系统目前以超线性方式进化,而进化的主要推动力是适应系统硬件资源的进化.     

The changing face of freeware

Whether it's called freeware or open source software, the popularity of software that is either given away or provided at a nominal price along with its source code is growing rapidly. There are numerous examples of popular open source software, including the Linux operating system and the market leading Apache Web server. With its increasing popularity, freeware is beginning to challenge long held concepts about software development and distribution. Developers give away software for a number of reasons. Netscape recently turned Navigator into open source software in an effort to regain market share captured by Microsoft's Internet Explorer (which is also distributed at no cost but without the source code) and to boost the sale of Netscape's server software and related products. Developers also give away software and source code to get users to sample their creations or to encourage independent programmers to enhance a product. In addition, many developers give away software because they support an open, independent “freeware culture” in which software is available to all developers, who can then use, adapt, and improve it as they see fit     

开源软件开发者的演化研究

开源软件的开发主要依靠开发人员的自我管理和志愿贡献。在软件开发过程中,开发人员的组成、分工、能力等会发生经常性的改变,这些改变都会通过交互行为的变化反映出来。已有研究成果表明开源软件存在核心团队,他们主导项目的开发与实施,但对开发团队随时间而发生的结构变化的研究较少。通过观测软件项目生命周期中开发者总体的变化情况,研究了开发者网络与软件的协同演化机理,以GNU/Linux公共数据集为例,讨论了开源软件开发者数量、自愿度、开发者经验与项目的协同演化现象,并给出了演化的合理解释。     

基于Jetspeed实现Web应用到Portlet应用的转变

Portal和Struts来源于对灵活的业务模型的追求,推动着新一代应用集成框架的发展和成熟.Jetspeed是Apache Jakarta项目中的开发源码门户系统,是企业级信息门户的原型实现.通过在Jetspeed基础上进行的二次开发,论述了如何实现基于Struts 2 的Web应用到Portlet应用的转变.     

开源软件FreeBSD内核进化研究*

摘要：归纳开源软件项目的数据源及数据收集方法,给出FreeBSD内核的软件进化分析方法和相关分析结果。重点分析了FreeBSD系统和主要子系统的复杂性进化趋势及推动进化的主要原因,提出了快速测算大型开源软件复杂性的方法。     

Virtual communities as a resource for the development of OSS projects: the case of Linux ports to embedded processors

Open source software (OSS) projects represent a new paradigm of software creation and development based on hundreds or even thousands of developers and users organised in the form of a virtual community. The success of an OSS project is closely linked to the successful organisation and development of the virtual community of support. The main objective of this article is to analyse the activity of virtual communities. Social network analysis is employed to analyse Linux ports to embedded processors as a case study to achieve this aim. The obtained results confirm the necessity of structuring the virtual community with a selection of active developers and core members to promote community activity and attract peripheral users, expanding the impact of the underlying software. The obtained result will be useful for the software industry migrating to the open source software paradigm.     

Comparative case studies of open source software peer review practices

ContextThe power of open source software peer review lies in the involvement of virtual communities, especially users who typically do not have a formal role in the development process. As communities grow to a certain extent, how to organize and support the peer review process becomes increasingly challenging. A universal solution is likely to fail for communities with varying characteristics.ObjectiveThis paper investigates differences of peer review practices across different open source software communities, especially the ones engage distinct types of users, in order to offer contextualized guidance for developing open source software projects.MethodComparative case studies were conducted in two well-established large open source communities, Mozilla and Python, which engage extremely different types of users. Bug reports from their bug tracking systems were examined primarily, complemented by secondary sources such as meeting notes, blog posts, messages from mailing lists, and online documentations.ResultsThe two communities differ in the key activities of peer review processes, including different characteristics with respect to bug reporting, design decision making, to patch development and review. Their variances also involve the designs of supporting technology. The results highlight the emerging role of triagers, who bridge the core and peripheral contributors and facilitate the peer review process. The two communities demonstrate alternative designs of open source software peer review and their tradeoffs were discussed.ConclusionIt is concluded that contextualized designs of social and technological solutions to open source software peer review practices are important. The two cases can serve as learning resources for open source software projects, or other types of large software projects in general, to cope with challenges of leveraging enormous contributions and coordinating core developers. It is also important to improve support for triagers, who have not received much research effort yet.     

Firefox缺陷跟踪系统中的用户反馈

缺陷追踪是软件项目管理的一个重要环节，是保证现代大规模开源软件开发顺利进行并持续提高软件质量的必要手段.目前，大部分开源软件都使用开放的缺陷跟踪系统进行软件缺陷的管理.它允许用户向开发者提交系统故障（即defect类型缺陷）以及系统改进建议（即enhancement类型缺陷），但是这些用户的反馈所起的作用尚未得到充分研究.针对这一问题，对Firefox的缺陷跟踪系统进行实证研究，收集了2018年和2019年提交的19 474份Firefox Desktop以及3 057份Firefox for Android缺陷报告.在此基础上，对比分析了普通用户和核心开发者提交的缺陷在数量、严重性、组件分布、修复率、修复速度以及修复者上的差别，并调查了缺陷报告的撰写质量与缺陷处理结果和修复时间的关系.主要发现包括：（1）当前缺陷追踪系统中普通用户人数众多，但参与程度较浅，86%的用户只提交过一个缺陷，其中，高严重等级的缺陷不超过3%；（2）普通用户提交的缺陷主要分布在和用户交互相关的UI组件上（例如地址栏、音频/视频等），然而还有43%的缺陷由于缺乏充分描述信息而难以准确地定位到具体的关联组件；（3）在缺陷处理结果上，由于查重系统以及缺陷填报系统在设计上过于简单，致使普通用户提交的大量缺陷被处理为“无用”缺陷，缺陷修复率低于10%；（4）在缺陷修复流程上，由于普通用户难以准确、充分地描述缺陷，导致系统对其重视程度不足，普通用户提交缺陷的处理流程也比核心开发者提交的复杂，平均需要多花至少8天的时间进行修复.上述研究结果揭示了当前缺陷追踪系统在用户参与激励机制、缺陷自动查重以及缺陷报告填写智能辅助等方面的不足，能够为缺陷跟踪系统开发者和管理者改进系统、提高普通用户对开源软件的贡献提供参考.     

设计动态网站的最佳方案:Apache+PHP+MySQL

Apache是目前应用最广的Web服务器;PHP是一种类似ASP的服务器端脚本语言,而MySQL是一个小巧的数据库系统软件,它们特别适用于网站建设.Apache PHP MySQL不仅仅是开源项目,可免费获取,而且它支持Linux、UNIX、OS/2和Windows多个操作系统,可移植性好.因此,这种组合是设计动态网站的最佳解决方案.首先介绍Apache PHP MySQL这3个软件的安装与配置,然后给出了在Windows操作系统平台下选择Apache PHP MySQL组合的网上商店系统的开发原理,系统功能的具体设计与实现.     

开源许可证检测系统的研究*

针对软件开发过程中许可证冲突的问题,对QualiPSo(quality platform for open source software)项目中提出的开源许可证检测管理过程进行研究分析,以此为支撑,改进现有的许可证检查控制工具OSLC(open source license checker),并与项目成熟度分析和软件开发质量评估检测软件Spago4Q(spagoBI for quality)集成,开发出自动检测开源许可证冲突的原型系统;阐述了将OSLC发布成Web service的类图设计,以及Spago4Q提取器的设计与实现,力求从法律角度提高开源软件的质量,并给基于开源组件的商业软件开发者一定的建议。     

基于特征提取的开源社区Fork摘要自动生成方法

当前,基于P/R的分布式协同开发已经成为开源社区中的主导软件开发方式。开发者通过Fork复制软件项目的版本库,创建自身分支,并在新建分支中进行独立开发。由于P/R协同开发模型具有开放性、透明性和并行化等特征,开发人员在Fork项目时难以掌握项目的Fork概况,不知道其他开发人员是否已通过Fork开展相同或类似的开发工作,从而容易产生重复性的贡献和冗余性开发。针对这个问题,提出一种Fork摘要的自动生成方法以帮助项目管理者加强项目管控,避免冗余贡献,增强合作交流。该方法首先爬取开源社区中具有Feature和Bug标签信息的Issue数据,采用随机森林方法训练一个分类器模型,以对Fork特征进行分类;随后收集Fork分支的软件开发活动数据,采用TextRank算法生成Fork详细信息以解释Fork的主要目的;最后设计了一组组合规则及相应的算法来整合Fork的类别、特征和其他信息,以形成完整的Fork摘要。为了检验所提方法在指导分布式协同开发方面的有效性,在Github上进行了30组人工测试和60组实际案例测试。结果表明,所提方法生成的Fork摘要的准确率达到67.2%,实验中76%的项目管理者认为Fork摘要有助于更好地管理项目,加强沟通与合作。     

基于贡献分配的开源软件核心开发者评估

开源软件中如何真实评估所有开发者的贡献度并有效区分核心开发者和外围开发者是一个重要的研究问题.通过设计开发文件的贡献度分配算法,以9个Apache项目为基础分析了开发者对项目的贡献度,并以此有效地区分核心开发者和外围开发者.实验结果通过Apache官方主页公布的开发者地位名单进行考证,同时在真实名单的相似度上与传统评估方案进行了比较,验证了算法的实用性和有效性.最后,通过支持向量机建立分类模型,结合不同影响开发者地位的关键因素,提升了开发者分类的精确度.     

Open source reuse in commercial firms

Open source software provides organizations with new options for component-based development. As with commercial off-the-shelf software, project developers acquire open source components from a vendor (or a community) and use them "as is" or with minor modifications. Although they have access to the component's source code, developers aren't required to do anything with it. If the component's community is large and active, the adopting organization can expect frequent software updates, reasonable quality assurance, responsive hug fixes, and good technical support. Also, having freely available source code addresses two typical concerns with using COTS components: unknown implementation quality and long-term vendor support.     

开源许可证的选择:挑战和影响因素

开发者通常会为其开源代码选择不同的开源许可证来约束其使用条件,以期能有效地保护知识产权和维持软件的长远发展.然而,现有的开源许可证种类繁杂,开发者难以了解不同开源许可证间的差异,并且难以通过现有的开源许可证选择工具做出合适的选择——其使用要求开发者了解开源许可证相关条款并明确自己的业务需求.学术界虽然对开源许可证已有研...     

Understanding the attitudes,knowledge sharing behaviors and task performance of core developers: A longitudinal study

ContextPrior research has established that a few individuals generally dominate project communication and source code changes during software development. Moreover, this pattern has been found to exist irrespective of task assignments at project initiation.ObjectiveWhile this phenomenon has been noted, prior research has not sought to understand these dominant individuals. Previous work considering the effect of team structures on team performance has found that core communicators are the gatekeepers of their teams’ knowledge, and the performance of these members was correlated with their teams’ success. Building on this work, we have employed a longitudinal approach to study the way core developers’ attitudes, knowledge sharing behaviors and task performance change over the course of their project, based on the analysis of repository data.MethodWe first used social network analysis (SNA) and standard statistical analysis techniques to identify and select artifacts from ten different software development teams. These procedures were also used to select central practitioners among these teams. We then applied psycholinguistic analysis and directed content analysis (CA) techniques to interpret the content of these practitioners’ messages. Finally, we inspected these core developers’ activities as recorded in system change logs at various points in time during systems’ development.ResultsAmong our findings, we observe that core developers’ attitudes and knowledge sharing behaviors were linked to their involvement in actual software development and the demands of their wider project teams. However, core developers appeared to naturally possess high levels of insightful characteristics, which became evident very early during teamwork.ConclusionsProject performance would likely benefit from strategies aimed at surrounding core developers with other competent communicators. Core developers should also be supported by a wider team who are willing to ask questions and challenge their ideas. Finally, the availability of adequate communication channels would help with maintaining positive team climate, and this is likely to mitigate the negative effects of distance during distributed developments.     

A critical look at open source

In recent years, open source software - more properly, free and open source software - has emerged as one popular solution to the so-called "software crisis". Advocates regard F/OSS as an agile, practice-led initiative that addresses three key issues namely cost, time scale and quality. F/OSS products are usually freely available for public download. The collaborative, parallel efforts of globally distributed developers allow many F/OSS products to be developed much more quickly than conventional software. Many F/OSS offerings are recognized for their high standards of reliability, efficiency, and robustness; products such as GNU/Linux, Apache, and Bind have become "category killers" stifling the incentive to develop any competing products.     

Studying the co-evolution of production and test code in open source and industrial developer test processes through repository mining

Many software production processes advocate rigorous development testing alongside functional code writing, which implies that both test code and production code should co-evolve. To gain insight in the nature of this co-evolution, this paper proposes three views (realized by a tool called TeMo) that combine information from a software project’s versioning system, the size of the various artifacts and the test coverage reports. We validate these views against two open source and one industrial software project and evaluate our results both with the help of log messages, code inspections and the original developers of the software system. With these views we could recognize different co-evolution scenarios (i.e., synchronous and phased) and make relevant observations for both developers as well as test engineers.