开源软件开发者和源代码协调性的网络分析

Network analysis on the coordination between developers and source code in an open source software community

开源软件开发本着自愿参加和开放服务的原则吸引着越来越多的软件开发者,但是开源社区合作协调的管理一直是个难题。本文对开源软件开发者社区与其中的源代码管理系统的协调性进行了元网络分析实证研究。操作项目代码的次数可作为衡量开源软件成败的一个重要指标,而该指标与开发者和源代码之间的相互依存关系有密切联系。本文用Sourceforge.net开源软件孵化平台的CVS源代码管理系统中的记录文件构建开发者和源代码间的依存网络,分析了该网络中的依存关系对软件成功的影响,并从中介性、等级性、边缘性、一致性和邻接性五个方面探讨了相互依存中的协调性问题。本文提出的方法和得到的结论可帮助开发者降低沟通成本,更有效地协调软件开发中开发者和源代码中的依存关系。

Because of the voluntarily participation and open service, Open Source Software （OSS） community has attracted more and more developers to make contributions, however its coordination is still a big problem. The coordination of developers and source code are studied. By the metanetwork analysis, the total amount of commitment to the source code repository could be regarded as the measure to observe the success of an OSS project, and this index is highly related to the dependency network of committers and modules. The data from CVS repository in source：forge, net is used to construct a dependency network, and the impact of coordination in a dependency network on project success is examined to align with five coordination criteria： intermodiation, kierarchization, marginalization, consistency, and adjacency. It could help developers to reduce the transaction cost and efficiently manage coordination during software development in an OSS community.