The Empirical Commit Frequency Distribution of Open Source Projects

Kolassa C, Riehle D, Salim MA (2013)


Publication Type: Conference contribution, Original article

Publication year: 2013

Publisher: ACM Press

Edited Volumes: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration, WikiSym + OpenSym 2013

City/Town: Nirgendwo

Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration

Event location: Hongkong

URI: http://dirkriehle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/OpenSym2013.pdf

DOI: 10.1145/2491055.2491073

Abstract

A fundamental unit of work in programming is the code contribution (\commit") that a developer makes to the code base of the project in work. An author's commit frequency describes how often that author commits. Knowing the distribution of all commit frequencies is a fundamental part of understanding software development processes. This paper presents a detailed quantitative analysis of commit frequencies in open-source software development. The analysis is based on a large sample of open source projects, and presents the overall distribution of commit frequencies. We analyze the data to show the dierences between authors and projects by project size; we also includes a comparison of successful and non successful projects and we derive an activity indicator from these analyses. By measuring a fundamental dimension of programming we help improve software development tools and our understanding of software development. We also validate some fundamental assumptions about software development. Copyright 2010 ACM.

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How to cite

APA:

Kolassa, C., Riehle, D., & Salim, M.A. (2013). The Empirical Commit Frequency Distribution of Open Source Projects. In Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration. Hongkong: Nirgendwo: ACM Press.

MLA:

Kolassa, Carsten, Dirk Riehle, and Michel Alexandre Salim. "The Empirical Commit Frequency Distribution of Open Source Projects." Proceedings of the WikiSym + OpenSym 2013, Hongkong Nirgendwo: ACM Press, 2013.

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