What Attracts Newcomers to Onboard on OSS Projects? TL;DR: Popularity
What Attracts Newcomers to Onboard on OSS Projects? TL;DR: Popularity
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是什么吸引新人加入 OSS 项目？
DOI：
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发表时间：
2019
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Igor Steinmacher
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Felipe Fronchetti;I. Wiese;G. Pinto;Igor Steinmacher
自愿捐款在保持开源软件 (OSS) 项目活跃方面发挥着重要作用。新志愿者基于一系列动机而感到有动力为 OSS 项目做出贡献。在这项研究中，我们的目的是了解 OSS 项目通常保留哪些因素可能会影响新贡献者的入职。使用一组 450 个存储库，我们调查了混合因素，例如项目年龄、星星数量、使用的编程语言或是否存在帮助贡献者的文本文件（例如拉取请求或许可证文件的模板）。我们使用 K-Spectral Centroid (KSC) 聚类算法来调查所分析项目的新来者增长率。我们可以发现三种常见的模式：对数、指数和线性增长模式。基于这些模式，我们使用随机森林分类器来了解每个因素如何解释增长率。我们发现项目的受欢迎程度（以星级计算）、审查拉取请求的时间、项目年龄和编程语言是最能解释新人成长模式的因素。
Voluntary contributions play an important role in maintaining Open Source Software (OSS) projects active. New volunteers feel motivated to contribute to OSS projects based on a set of motivations. In this study, we aim to understand which factors OSS projects usually maintain that might influence their new contributors’ onboarding. Using a set of 450 repositories, we investigated mixed factors, such as the project age, the number of stars, the programming language used, or the presence of text files that aid contributors (e.g., templates for pull-requests or license files). We used a K-Spectral Centroid (KSC) clustering algorithm to investigated the newcomers’ growth rate for the analyzed projects. We could found three common patterns: a logarithmic, an exponential, and a linear growth pattern. Based on these patterns, we used a Random Forest classifier to understand how each factor could explain the growth rates. We found that popularity of the project (in terms of stars), time to review pull requests, project age, and programming languages are the factors that best explain the newcomers’ growth patterns.