Studying the laws of software evolution in a long-lived FLOSS project

ome free, open-source software projects have been around for quite a long time, the longest living ones dating from the early 1980s. For some of them, detailed information about their evolution is available in source code management systems tracking all their code changes for periods of more than 15 years. This paper examines in detail the evolution of one of such projects, glibc, with the main aim of understanding how it evolved and how it matched Lehman's laws of software evolution. As a result, we have developed a methodology for studying the evolution of such long-lived projects based on the information in their source code management repository, described in detail several aspects of the history of glibc, including some activity and size metrics, and found how some of the laws of software evolution may not hold in this cas

FLOSSTV Free, Libre, Open Source Software (FLOSS) within participatory 'TV hacking' Media and Arts Practices

This research operates in the context of a European political discourse, where the main concern is counter­cultural approaches to non­ mandatory collaboration and contractual agreements. FLOSSTV (Free, Libre, Open Source Software TV) covers a broad range of practices, from television via documentary up to media arts productions. This thesis documents the endeavour to formulate a policy for FLOSS culture. FLOSSTV studies the impact of new intellectual property legislation on media production, as well as conceptions and applications of collective authorship and alternative licensing schemes. FLOSSTV sets out to explore methods that can facilitate media and arts practitioners wishing to engage in collaborative media productions. The thesis sets out to investigate the theories and histories of collaborative media and arts productions in order to set the ground for an exploration of the tools, technologies and aesthetics of such collaborations. The FLOSSTV thesis proposes a set of contracts and policies that allow for such collaborations to develop. It is through practice that this research explores FLOSS culture, including its methods, licensing schemes and technologies. In order to focus the research within the field of FLOSSTV I initiated the practice ­based Deptford.TV pilot project as the central research experiment for the FLOSSTV thesis. DVD ONE contains a series of films produced collaboratively for Deptford.TV that express the characteristics and contractual arrangements of FLOSS culture. Deptford.TV is an online audiovisual database primarily collecting media assets around the Deptford area, in South­East London, UK. Deptford.TV functions as an open, collaborative platform that allows artists, film­makers, researchers and participants of the local workshops in and around Deptford, and also beyond Deptford, to store, share, re­edit and redistribute their footage and projects. The open and collaborative nature of the Deptford.TV project demonstrates a form of shared media practice in two ways: audiences become producers by submitting their own footage, and the database enables the contributors to interact with each other. Through my practice­lead research project Deptford.TV I argue that, by supporting collaborative methods and practices, FLOSS (Free, Libre, Open Source Software) can empower media and arts practitioners to collaborate in production and distribution processes of media and arts practices

On the Socio-Technical Dependencies in Free/Libre/Open Source Software Projects

During the course of the past two decades, Open Source Software (OSS) development model has lead to a number of projects which have produced software that rivals and in some cases even exceeds the scale and quality of the traditional software projects. Among others, Eclipse, Apache, Linux, and BSD operating system are representative examples of such success stories.However, OSS project like traditional in-house projects, often pose the potential for enormous problems, whose effects run the gamut from immense cumulative delay through complete breakdown and failure. This situation is evident, as OSS development is a socio-technical endeavor and is non-trivial. Such development occurs within an intensively collaborative process, in which technical prowess must go hand in hand with the efficient coordination and management of a large number of social, inter-personal interactions across the development organization. Furthermore, those social and technical dimensions are not orthogonal. It has been recognized that the structure of a software product and the layout of the development organization working on that product correlate.Therefore this thesis argue that a comprehensive understanding on the sustainable evolution of OSS projects can be gained through the examination of the mutual influence of social and technical dimensions in OSS development. Thus, the goal of this thesis is the verification and reasoning of the following proposition,“The evolution of the Open Source Software (OSS) project is constrained by the non-orthogonal evolution of Social and Technical dimensions (often termed as Socio-Technical dependency) of such projects”.In concrete terms, this thesis investigates and measures empirically the extent to which the two dimensions of OSS projects, social and technical, approximate and influence each other during the evolution of the projects. Perceived insight is then used to build proposals that would provide empirical basis to frame theory around the affirmed proposition.Moving towards this goal, this thesis proposes models, methods, frameworks and tool supports to measure, assess, and reason the socio-technical dependency within OSS project context. The starting point is to propose a data model to mimic the social and technical dimensions and their inter-relationships. This model is instantiated through the repository data of OSS projects that represent each of these dimensions. Then, methods and a mathematical model are proposed to derive dependency between the two dimensions, and to utilize them in measuring socio-technical dependency quantitatively. These proposals are then put into practice within distinct OSS project contexts to empirically measure and investigate socio-technical dependency. Along the process, frameworks, architectural design and corresponding tool implementations are provided to automate the analysis and visualization of such dependency.Reported results suggest that high degree of socio-technical congruence can be considered as the implicit underlying principle for building team collaboration and coordination within the developer community of long lived OSS projects. Even being highly distributed community of developers, and mostly using passive communication channels, OSS communities are tied together by maintaining task dependent communication. Such communication is often ad-hoc, adaptive and situated as it cope with rapid and continuous changes in the underlying software.Additionally, collaboration among projects are significantly influenced by the resembling properties among the projects. Resembling properties (e.g., project domain, size, and programming language) often form a favorable ground, thus creating a stimuli for developers to participate in those projects

Dinámica científica de software de código abierto en países de habla hispana: estadísticas para la bibliometría

Open source software is gaining space, along with its culture and philosophy, it is used in some cases without realizing that it is present, as is the case with Mozilla Firefox, Chromium, the Linux operating system or its Android derivative. On the other hand, nowadays, bibliometrics is very important, since it constitutes a powerful tool that influences the deliberations made by academics or society in general on any topic discussed. In recent years, the use of open source software has developed rapidly throughout the world; however, no consolidated topics related to open source software have been found in scientific production. The objective of this study was to explore the dimensions and trends related to open source software in Spanish-speaking countries for the identification of important achievements and main research fields with reference to this topic. Calculations were made with the extracted data using the R programming language for statistical analysis, together with the Bibliometrix package to determine scientometric variables; while the bibliometric visual approach was carried out using VOSviewer. The results indicate that research related to open source software in Spanish-speaking countries has evolved in recent years. They show how the realities in scientific production are different, varied and with a multidisciplinary character, this topic being able to play a crucial role in the development of these other disciplines.El software de código abierto está ganando espacio, junto con su cultura y filosofía, se lo usa en algunos casos sin percibir que está presente, como es el caso de Mozilla Firefox, Chromium, el sistema operativo Linux o su derivado Android. Por otra parte, hoy en día, la bibliometría cobra mucha importancia, puesto que, constituye una poderosa herramienta, que influencia en las deliberaciones hechas por académicos o la sociedad en general sobre algún tema tratado. En los últimos años, el uso de software de código abierto se ha desarrollado rápidamente en todo el mundo; sin embargo, no se ha encontrado algún consolidado de los temas relacionados de software de código abierto en la producción científica. El objetivo de este estudio fue explorar las dimensiones y tendencias relacionadas con el software de código abierto en países de habla hispana para la identificación de logros importantes y campos de investigación principales con referencia a este tema. Se realizaron cálculos con los datos extraídos utilizando el lenguaje de programación R para el análisis estadístico, junto al paquete Bibliometrix para determinar variables cienciométrícas; mientras que, el enfoque visual bibliométrico se lo realizó utilizando VOSviewer. Los resultados indican que la investigación relacionada con el software de código abierto en los países de habla hispana ha evolucionado en los últimos años. Muestran cómo las realidades en la producción científica son diferentes, variadas y con un carácter multidisciplinario, pudiendo este tema desempeñar un papel crucial en el desarrollo de estas otras disciplinas