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The evolution of FreeBSD and linux

Published: 21 September 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Is the nature of Open Source Software (OSS) evolution fundamentally different from that of the traditional and commercially available software systems? Lehman and others conducted a series of empirical studies that found that traditional systems grow at a linear or sub-linear rate. A prior case study of the Linux OSS system suggests that OSS may evolve in a unique manner. Godfrey and Tu found that some aspects of Linux are growing at a super-linear rate rather than a sub-linear rate. Additional studies are necessary before drawing conclusions. Thus, we examine the evolution of FreeBSD and re-analyze the evolution of Linux, and find evidence that the growth of both systems has a linear upper bound, and thus appear to grow at similar rates to that of commercial systems. These results do not support the hypothesis that OSS systems grow at rates that exceed that of traditional systems.

References

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Dinh-Trong, T., and Bieman, J. The FreeBSD Project: A Replication Case Study of Open Source Development. IEEE Trans. Software Engineering, 31(6):481--494, June 2005.
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The FreeBSD website. http://www.freebsd.org
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Gall, H., Jazayeri, M., Kloesch, R., and Trausmuth, G. Software evolution observations based on product release history. Proc. of the 1997 Intl. Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM 1997), Bari, Italy, Oct 1997
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Godfrey, M., and Tu., Q. Evolution in Open Source Software: A Case Study. Proc. of the 2000 Intl. Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM-00), San Jose, California, October 2000.
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Godfrey, M., and Tu., Q. http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~migod/papers/icsm00-slides.pdf. Presentation at the 2000 Intl. Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM-00), San Jose, California, October 2000.
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Godfrey, M., and Tu., Q. Growth, Evolution, and Structural Change in Open Source Software. Proc. 2001 Intl. Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution (IWPSE-01), Vienna, September 2001.
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Lehman, M.M., Laws of Software Evolution Revisited. Proc of the 1996 European Workshop on Software Process Technology (EWSPT). Nancy, France, 1996 Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1149, pp. 108--124, 1997.
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Scacchi, W. Understanding Open Source Software Evolution: Applying, Breaking, and Rethinking the Laws of Software Evolution. Tech. Report. Institute for Software Research. University of California, Irvine, April 2003
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ISESE '06: Proceedings of the 2006 ACM/IEEE international symposium on Empirical software engineering
    September 2006
    388 pages
    ISBN:1595932186
    DOI:10.1145/1159733
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    Published: 21 September 2006

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    Author Tags

    1. FreeBSD
    2. evolution
    3. linux
    4. open source software
    5. replication study
    6. software engineering

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    • (2023)Parallelising semantic checking in an IDE: A way toward improving profits and sustainability, while maintaining high-quality software developmentActa Universitatis Sapientiae, Informatica10.2478/ausi-2023-001615:2(239-266)Online publication date: 12-Dec-2023
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