Exploring the Structure of Complex Software Designs: An Empirical Study of Open Source and Proprietary Code (updated)
Title | Exploring the Structure of Complex Software Designs: An Empirical Study of Open Source and Proprietary Code (updated) |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2005 |
Authors | MacCormack, A, Rusnak, J, Baldwin, C |
Date Published | June |
Keywords | complexity, cost, dependencies, functions, lines of code, linux, loc, mozilla, source code |
Abstract | This paper reports data from a study that seeks to characterize the differences in design structure between complex software products. In particular, we use Design Structure Matrices (DSMs) to map the dependencies between the elements of a design and define metrics that allow us to compare the structures of different designs. We first use these metrics to compare the architectures of two software products - the Linux operating system and the Mozilla web browser - that were developed via contrasting modes of organization: specifically, open source versus proprietary development. We then track the evolution of Mozilla, paying particular attention to a purposeful "re-design" effort that was undertaken with the intention of making the product more "modular." We find significant differences in structure between Linux and the first version of Mozilla, suggesting that Linux had a more modular architecture. We also find that the redesign of Mozilla resulted in an architecture that was significantly more modular than that of its predecessor, and indeed, than that of Linux. Our results, while exploratory, are consistent with a view that different modes of organization are associated with designs that possess different structures. However, we also illustrate that purposeful managerial actions can have a large impact on structure. This latter result is important given recent moves to release proprietary software into the public domain. These moves are likely to fail unless the product possesses an architecture that facilitates participation. Our paper provides evidence that a tightly-coupled design can be adapted to meet this objective. |
Notes | "For each design, we report data on the number of source files, the number of dependencies, the density of the DSM (i.e., the number of dependencies per source file pair) the propagation cost and the clustered cost. We also provide data on the average complexity of source files, in terms of the number of functions and lines of code." |
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