2004/01/01 by Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona · 177 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Computer science #Data mining #Data science #Database #Domain (mathematical analysis) #Peer-to-Peer Network Technologies #Set (abstract data type) #Social media #Social network analysis #Software #Software Engineering Research #Software engineering #Visualization #World Wide Web
paper · doi:10.1049/ic:20040485
openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
The huge quantities of data available in the CVS repositories of large, long-lived libre (free, open source) software projects, and the many interrelationships among those data offer opportunities for extracting large amounts of valuable information about their structure, evolution and internal processes. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of that information renders it almost unusable without applying methodologies which highlight the relevant information for a given aspect of the project. We propose the use of a well known set of methodologies (social network analysis) for characterizing libre software projects, their evolution over time and their internal structure. In addition, we show how we have applied such methodologies to real cases, and extract some preliminary conclusions from that experience.