Evaluating the Quality of Open Source Software

  • Authors:

  • Diomidis Spinellis;Georgios Gousios;Vassilios Karakoidas;Panagiotis Louridas;Paul J. Adams;Ioannis Samoladas;Ioannis Stamelos

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece;Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece;Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece;Department of Management Science and Technology, Athens University of Economics and Business, Athens, Greece;Research and Development, Sirius Corporation Ltd., Weybridge, United Kingdom;Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece;Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

  • Venue:
  • Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS)
  • Year:
  • 2009

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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.