Abstract
The paper investigates the processes by which bugs are fixed in open-source software projects. Focusing on Mozilla and combining data from both its bug tracker (Bugzilla) and from its CVS, we suggest that: a) Some bugs resist beyond the first patch applied to the main branch of the source code in relation to them, which we denote as superbugs; b) There might exist different bug fixing regimes; c) priority and severity flags as defined in bug repositories are not optimized for superbugs and might lead to a involuntary side effects; d) The survival time of superbugs is influenced by the nature of the discussions within Bugzilla, by bug dependencies and by the provision of contextual elements.
The work presented here has benefited from discussions with Patrick Brézillon, Paul A. David, Laurent Daudet, Fabrice Galia, Hela Masmoudi and others. The support of Calibre, an EU FP6 project, and of NSF project NOSTRA in the early phases of this research are also gratefully acknowledged.
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Keywords
- Main Branch
- Contextual Element
- Open Source Software Development
- Coordination Practice
- Information System Success
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
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© 2007 International Federation for Information Processing
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Dalle, JM., den Besten, M. (2007). Different Bug Fixing Regimes? A Preliminary Case for Superbugs. In: Feller, J., Fitzgerald, B., Scacchi, W., Sillitti, A. (eds) Open Source Development, Adoption and Innovation. OSS 2007. IFIP — The International Federation for Information Processing, vol 234. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-72486-7_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-72486-7_23
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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