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International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications

ICCSA 2019: Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2019 pp 242–256Cite as

Investigating Evolution in Open Source Software

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 11623))

Abstract

Lehman’s well-known laws of software evolution have existed since the early 1980’s and although they have been nuanced, augmented and discussed many times since then, software and software development practices have changed dramatically since then, not least due to the rise and popularity of open source software (OSS). OSS is written collaboratively with the process and products publically observable, whereas the original laws were derived based on a very different context. The question then arises if Lehman’s laws apply to modern day OSS software. The GitHub repository is the most comprehensive source of OSS projects and is used here to obtain data on how OSS projects have evolved. This work uses one hundred open source projects hosted on GitHub. Metrics are obtained via the provided API, using a purpose-built workbench and several of Lehman’s laws are evaluated using the data available. Coupled with a critique of how judgements can be made from the data available, the study has discovered that the evidence does not support many of the laws. An important proviso with such an approach is the limitation on what data can be extracted and/or inferred from the GitHub API. Nonetheless, there is enough of a challenge made to the laws to warrant further study and a need to revisit some of the laws in the context of open source development.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

    Jordan McDonald & Des Greer

Authors
  1. Jordan McDonald
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  2. Des Greer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Des Greer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria

    Sanjay Misra

  2. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  3. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  4. Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia

    Elena Stankova

  5. Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg , Russia

    Vladimir Korkhov

  6. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo Torre

  7. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A.C. Rocha

  8. Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    David Taniar

  9. Kyushu Sangyo University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Bernady O. Apduhan

  10. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Eufemia Tarantino

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McDonald, J., Greer, D. (2019). Investigating Evolution in Open Source Software. In: Misra, S., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2019. ICCSA 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11623. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24308-1_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24308-1_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-24307-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-24308-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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