Bridging the Gap between Agile and Free Software Approaches

TitleBridging the Gap between Agile and Free Software Approaches
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2009
AuthorsAdams, PJ, Capiluppi, A
Secondary TitleInternational Journal of Open Source Software and Processes
Volume1
Issue1
Pagination58 - 71
Date Published31/2009
ISSN Number1942-3934
Keywordsagile, kde, lines of code, loc, plone, productivity, scm, scrum, sprints, subversion
Abstract

Agile sprints are short events where a small team collocates in order to work on particular aspects of the overall project for a short period of time. Sprinting is a process that has been observed also in Free Software projects: these two paradigms, sharing common principles and values have shown several commonalities of practice. This article evaluates the impact of sprinting on a Free Software project through the analysis of code repository logs: sprints from two Free Software projects (Plone and KDE PIM) are assessed and two hypotheses are formulated: do sprints increase productivity? Are Free Software projects more productive after sprints compared with before? The primary contribution of this article is to show how sprinting creates a large increase in productivity both during the event, and immediately after the event itself: this argues for more in-depth studies focussing on the nature of sprinting.

DOI10.4018/jossp.2009010104
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