An empirically-based characterization and quantification of information seeking through mailing lists during Open Source developers’ software evolution

Abstract

ContextSeveral authors have proposed information seeking as an appropriate perspective for studying software evolution. Empirical evidence in this area suggests that substantial time delays can accrue, due to the unavailability of required information, particularly when this information must travel across geographically distributed sites. ObjectiveAs a first step in addressing the time delays that can occur in information seeking for distributed Open Source (OS) programmers during software evolution, this research characterizes the information seeking of OS developers through their mailing lists. MethodA longitudinal study that analyses 17 years of developer mailing list activity in total, over 6 different OS projects is performed, identifying the prevalent information types sought by developers, from a qualitative, grounded analysis of this data. Quantitative analysis of the number-of-responses and response time-lag is also performed. ResultsThe analysis shows that Open Source developers are particularly implementation centric and team focused in their use of mailing lists, mirroring similar findings that have been reported in the literature. However novel findings include the suggestion that OS developers often require support regarding the technology they use during development, that they refer to documentation fairly frequently and that they seek implementation-oriented specifics based on system design principles that they anticipate in advance. In addition, response analysis suggests a large variability in the response rates for different types of questions, and particularly that participants have difficulty ascertaining information on other developer's activities. ConclusionThe findings provide insights for those interested in supporting the information needs of OS developer communities: They suggest that the tools and techniques developed in support of co-located developers should be largely mirrored for these communities: that they should be implementation centric, and directed at illustrating "how" the system achieves its functional goals and states. Likewise they should be directed at determining the reason for system bugs: a type of question frequently posed by OS developers but less frequently responded to.

Exploring Knowledge Loss in Open Source Software (OSS) Projects

“…Knowledge sharing in OSS communities is mainly by asynchronous communication and typically involves mailing lists, blogs, forums, and Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Researchers have utilised OSS project mailing list data in various studies and it is thought to be one of the primary communication mechanisms in OSS projects [52]. However, the knowledge shared suffers from only partial coverage [17] and it can lack effective levels of organisation.…”

Architecture information communication in two OSS projects: The why, who, when, and what

“…Mailing lists in OSS development have been investigated recently for traceability between emails and source code [5], communication in development using mailing lists [22], and information seeking through mailing lists [39]. For example, a recent study on 37 Apache projects shows that 89.51% of all design discussions occur in project mailing lists [62].…”

Characterizing the transfer of program comprehension in onboarding: an information-push perspective

“…For example, it can be difficult to identify knowledgeable coworkers (Mockus and Herbsleb 2002) and, even if a knowledgeable co-worker is identified, poor explanation skills and unhelpful attitudes can impact on their value (McDonald and Ackerman 1998;Begel and Simon 2008b). Likewise, documentation might not exist, be out of date (Lethbridge et al 2003), or be difficult to navigate through to information of interest (Dekel and Herbsleb 2009a;Sharif 2012). Ko et al (2007) categorized programmers' information needs into 21 different types, ranging from highly social (what are my co-workers doing?)…”