Two case studies of open source software development

ABSTRACT

According to its proponents, open source style software development has the capacity to compete successfully, and perhaps in many cases displace, traditional commercial development methods. In order to begin investigating such claims, we examine data from two major open source projects, the Apache web server and the Mozilla browser. By using email archives of source code change history and problem reports we quantify aspects of developer participation, core team size, code ownership, productivity, defect density, and problem resolution intervals for these OSS projects. We develop several hypotheses by comparing the Apache project with several commercial projects. We then test and refine several of these hypotheses, based on an analysis of Mozilla data. We conclude with thoughts about the prospects for high-performance commercial/open source process hybrids.

REFERENCES

Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only correct and linked references.

	1	Ang, M. and Eich, B. 2000. A look at the Mozilla technology and architecture. In O'Reilly Open Source Convention. Available at http://mozilla.org/docs/ora-oss2000/arch-overview/intro.html.
	2	Apache group. http://dev.apache.org/guidelines.html.
	3	Baker, M. 2000. The Mozilla project and mozilla.org. Available at http://www.mozilla.org/editorials/mozilla-overview.html.
	4	Basili V. R. and Weiss, D. M. 1984. A methodology for collecting valid software engineering data. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 10, 728--738.
	5	Bollinger, T., Nelson, R., Self, K. M., and Turnbull, S. J. 1999. Open-source methods: Peering through the clutter, IEEE Softw. (July/August), 8--1.1
	6	Carleton, A. D., Park, R. E., Goethert, W. B., Florac, W. A., Bailey, E. K., and Pfleeger, S. L. 1992. Software measurement for DoD systems: Recommendations for initial core measures. Tech. Rep. CMU/SEI-92-TR-19 Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (September).
	7	Bill Curtis , Herb Krasner , Neil Iscoe, A field study of the software design process for large systems, Communications of the ACM, v.31 n.11, p.1268-1287, Nov. 1988 [doi>10.1145/50087.50089]
	8	Chris DiBona , Sam Ockman , Mark Stone, Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA, 1999
	9	Eich, B. 2001. Mozilla development roadmap. Available at http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html.
	10	N. Fenton, Software Measurement: A Necessary Scientific Basis, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.20 n.3, p.199-206, March 1994 [doi>10.1109/32.268921]
	11	Roy T. Fielding, Shared leadership in the Apache project, Communications of the ACM, v.42 n.4, p.42-43, April 1999 [doi>10.1145/299157.299167]
	12	Rebecca E. Grinter , James D. Herbsleb , Dewayne E. Perry, The geography of coordination: dealing with distance in R&D work, Proceedings of the international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work, p.306-315, November 14-17, 1999, Phoenix, Arizona, United States [doi>10.1145/320297.320333]
	13	Hecker, F. 1999. Mozilla at one: A look back and ahead. Available at http://www.mozilla. org/mozilla-at-one.html.
	14	James D. Herbsleb , Rebecca E. Grinter, Splitting the organization and integrating the code: Conway's law revisited, Proceedings of the 21st international conference on Software engineering, p.85-95, May 16-22, 1999, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/302405.302455]
	15	Howard, D. 2000. Source code directories overview. Available at http://mozilla.org/docs/source-directories-overview.html.
	16	Krochmal, M. 1999. Linux interest expanding, in TechWeb. Available at http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990521S0021.
	17	Mcconnell, S. 1999. Open-source methodology: Ready for prime time? IEEE Softw. (July/August), 6--8.
	18	Midha, K. 1997. Software configuration management for the 21st century, Bell Labs Tech. J. 2, 154--155.
	19	Audris Mockus , David M. Weiss, Globalization by Chunking: A Quantitative Approach, IEEE Software, v.18 n.2, p.30-37, March 2001 [doi>10.1109/52.914737]
	20	Mozilla project. Bugzilla. Available at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
	21	Mozilla project. Module Owners. Available at http://mozilla.org/owners.html
	22	Mozilla project. Quality Assurance page. Available at http://www.mozilla.org/quality/
	23	Mozilla project. Source Code via CVS. Available at http://www.mozilla.org/cvs.html
	24	Netcraft, http://www.netcraft.com/survey.
	25	Oeschger, I. and Boswell, D. 2000. Getting your work into Mozilla. Available at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mozilla/2000/09/29/keys.html
	26	Paquin, T. and Tabb, L. 1998. Mozilla.org: Open-Source Software.
	27	Perens, B. 1999. The open source definition. in Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, C. Dibona, S. Ockman, and M. Stone, Eds., O'Reilly, Sebastopol, Calif., 171--188.
	28	Raymond, E. S. 1999. The cathedral and the bazaar. Available at http://www.tuxedo.org/∼esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
	29	Rochkind, M. J. 1975. The source code control system. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 1, 364--370.
	30	Vixie, P. 1999. Software engineering. In Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, C. Dibona, S. Ockman, and M. Stone, Eds., O'Reilly, Sebastopol, Calif., 91--100.
	31	Williams, S. 2000. Learning the ways of Mozilla. Upside Today. Available at http://www.upside.com/texis/mvm/story?id=39e360180.
	32	Yeh, C. 1999. Mozilla tree verification process. Available at http://www.mozilla.org/build/verification.html
	33	Zawinski, J. 1999. Resignation and postmortem. Available at http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html.