Evaluating the Quality of Open Source Software

TitleEvaluating the Quality of Open Source Software
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2008
AuthorsSpinellis, D, Gousios, G, Karakoidas, V, Louridas, P, Adams, PJ, Samoladas, I, Stamelos, I
Secondary TitleElectronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science
Volume233
Pagination5–28
Date Published03/2009
PublisherThe Reengineering Forum
Keywordsbug tracking system, email, email archives, mailing list, metrics, open source, process quality attributes, product quality attributes, source code, SQO-OSS, wiki
Abstract

Traditionally, research on quality attributes was either kept under wraps within the organization that performed it, or carried out by outsiders using narrow, black-box techniques. The emergence of open source software has changed this picture allowing us to evaluate both software products and the processes that yield them. Thus, the software source code and the associated data stored in the version control system, the bug tracking databases, the mailing lists, and the wikis allow us to evaluate quality in a transparent way. Even better, the large number of (often competing) open source projects makes it possible to contrast the quality of comparable systems serving the same domain. Furthermore, by combining historical source code snapshots with significant events, such as bug discoveries and fixes, we can further dig into the causes and effects of problems. Here we present motivating examples, tools, and techniques that can be used to evaluate the quality of open source (and by extension also proprietary) software.

Notes

"the software source code and the associated data stored in the version control system, the bug tracking databases, the mailing lists, and the wikis allow us to evaluate quality in a transparent way"
"The data collection system collects the raw data from open source projects"
Mailing lists are measured in: Number of unique subscribers, Number of messages in user/support list per month, Number of messages in developers list per month, Average thread depth

URLhttp://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/conf/2008-SQM-SQOOSS/html/SGKL09.html
DOI10.1016/j.entcs.2009.02.058
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