Longitudinal Analysis of the Run-up to a Decision to Break-up (Fork) in a Community

Abstract

Abstract. In this paper, we use a developer-oriented statistical approach to understand what causes people in complex software development networks to decide to fork (break away), and what changes a community goes through in the run-up to a decision to break-up. Developing complex software systems is complex. Software developers interact. They may have the same or different goals, communication styles, or values. Interactions can be healthy or troubled. Troubled interactions cause troubled communities, that face failure. Some of these failures manifest themselves as a community split (known as forking). These failures affects many people; developers and users. Can we save troubled projects? We statistically model the longitudinal socio-grams of software developers and present early indicators and warning signs that can be used to predict an imminent break-up decision.

Applying a Systematic Literature Review and Content Analysis Method to Analyse Open Source Developers’ Forking Motivation Interpretation, Categories and Consequences

“…Despite a number of published OS forking studies that highlight critical factors attributed to successful software forking and forking failure (Glass, 2003;Fung, Aurum & Tang, 2012;Gamalielesson & Lundell, 2013;Jiang, Lo, He, Xia, Singh & Zhang, 2016;Azarbakht & Jensen, 2017), there has been no systematic study mapping understanding of forking motivation, interpretation, categorisation and consequences. This paper therefore presents a systematic review of studies to compare, contrast, summarise and synthesise existing studies to inform future decisions about OS forking research by providing an understanding of why some projects are forked more than others, through the lens of project and programming language characteristics.…”

“…Forking lessons learnt on project compatibility issues: 19 papers cited forking lessons and seven described more than one type of forking reason, including no guidance or direction, copyright, licensing conflict, project ownership or dividing the forking community (Moen, 1999;Glass, 2003;Neville-Neil, 2011;Cosentino et al, 2017;Azarbakht & Jensen, 2017). Neville (2011) pointed out that technical developers' roles are becoming specialised.…”