Audris Mockus
Roy T. Fielding
James D. Herbsleb
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.
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Index Terms
- Two case studies of open source software development: Apache and Mozilla
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Reviews
Satadip Dutta
The open source software development model differs from the traditional model in many ways. This paper provides a quantitative look at the open source development model being used for the Apache and Mozilla projects. The data collected from these projects is used to answer questions relating to the development process, to profile the contributors, and to examine defect tracking and resolution. The process used to collect process, contribution, and defect-related data from Apache and Mozilla is very extensive and convincing. The credibility and the relevance of the hypothesis derived from this data are subsequently very apt and prophetic. The conclusions of this article seem to be true for projects like Jboss (http://www.jboss.org) and Tomcat (http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/index.html). The recommendations made by the paper, in proposing a hybrid model for software development that combines aspects from the open source model and traditional model, provide a unique perspective for future software development projects. The paper provides excellent information, which can be of practical use in any software development project that wants to adopt some of the beneficial aspects of open source software development. Online Computing Reviews Service
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