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An Empirical Study of Technical Debt in Open-Source Software Systems

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Disciplinary Convergence in Systems Engineering Research

Abstract

Technical debt (TD) is a term coined by agile software pioneer Ward Cunningham to account for the added software-system effort or cost resulting from taking early software project shortcuts. The debt metaphor reflects that debt accumulates interest: the later it is paid, the more it costs. The TD concept has achieved extensive visibility and usage in the software field, but it applies at least as strongly to cyber-physical systems. In researching the TD phenomena, we have found that open-source software projects are particularly good subjects, as they keep records of the timing, content, and rationale for each update. In this paper, we concentrate on the analysis of open-source software projects to evaluate the relationships between multiple software system characteristics and TD and the relationships between software process factors and TD.

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Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported in part by the U.S. Department of Defense through the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC) under Contract H98230-08-D- 0171. SERC is a federally funded University Affiliated Research Center managed by Stevens Institute of Technology. It is also supported by the National Science Foundation grant CMMI-1408909, developing a constructive logic-based theory of value-based systems engineering. We also acknowledge the support of National Natural Science Foundation of China No. 91318301, 61432001, 91218302.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Systems and Software Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Reem Alfayez, Celia Chen, Pooyan Behnamghader, Kamonphop Srisopha & Barry Boehm

Authors
  1. Reem Alfayez
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  2. Celia Chen
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  3. Pooyan Behnamghader
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  4. Kamonphop Srisopha
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  5. Barry Boehm
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Reem Alfayez .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Systems Architecting and Engineering Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Azad M. Madni

  2. Center for Systems and Software Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Barry Boehm

  3. Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Roger G. Ghanem

  4. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Daniel Erwin

  5. Systems Engineering Fellow, The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, California, USA

    Marilee J. Wheaton

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Alfayez, R., Chen, C., Behnamghader, P., Srisopha, K., Boehm, B. (2018). An Empirical Study of Technical Debt in Open-Source Software Systems. In: Madni, A., Boehm, B., Ghanem, R., Erwin, D., Wheaton, M. (eds) Disciplinary Convergence in Systems Engineering Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62217-0_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62217-0_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-62216-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-62217-0

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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