World of code: enabling a research workflow for mining and analyzing the universe of open source VCS data
World of code: enabling a research workflow for mining and analyzing the universe of open source VCS data
复制标题
DOI：
10.1007/s10664-020-09905-9
复制
发表时间：
2020-10
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Yuxing Ma;Tapajit Dey;Chris Bogart;Sadika Amreen;Marat Valiev;Adam Tutko;David Kennard;R. Zaretzki;A. Mockus
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Yuxing Ma;Tapajit Dey;Chris Bogart;Sadika Amreen;Marat Valiev;Adam Tutko;David Kennard;R. Zaretzki;A. Mockus
开放源码软件(OSS)对现代社会至关重要，虽然已经对个别(通常是中央)项目进行了大量研究，但对整个OSS生态系统的外围了解有限。例如，外围的数千万个项目是如何通过技术依赖、代码共享或知识流相互联系的？为了回答这样的问题，我们：a)在整个FLOSS生态系统中创建一个非常大且频繁更新的版本控制数据集合，称为代码世界(World of Code，WoC)，它可以完全交叉引用FLOSS生态系统的作者、项目、提交、BLOB、依赖项和历史，以及b)提供有效地纠正、增加、查询和分析这些数据的能力。我们目前的WoC实现能够每月更新，并包含超过18B的Git对象。为了评估它的研究潜力并为它的使用创造小插曲，我们使用世界卫生组织进行了几项研究任务。特别是，我们发现它能够支持趋势评估、生态系统测量和包使用的确定。我们预计WOC将推动对OSS开发的全球属性的调查，从而提高整个OSS生态系统的弹性。我们的基础设施有助于发现关键的技术依赖关系、代码流和社交网络，为确定驱动FLOSS活动和创新的关系的结构和演变提供了基础。
Open source software (OSS) is essential for modern society and, while substantial research has been done on individual (typically central) projects, only a limited understanding of the periphery of the entire OSS ecosystem exists. For example, how are the tens of millions of projects in the periphery interconnected through technical dependencies, code sharing, or knowledge flow? To answer such questions we: a) create a very large and frequently updated collection of version control data in the entire FLOSS ecosystems named World of Code (WoC), that can completely cross-reference authors, projects, commits, blobs, dependencies, and history of the FLOSS ecosystems and b) provide capabilities to efficiently correct, augment, query, and analyze that data. Our current WoC implementation is capable of being updated on a monthly basis and contains over 18B Git objects. To evaluate its research potential and to create vignettes for its usage, we employ WoC in conducting several research tasks. In particular, we find that it is capable of supporting trend evaluation, ecosystem measurement, and the determination of package usage. We expect WoC to spur investigation into global properties of OSS development leading to increased resiliency of the entire OSS ecosystem. Our infrastructure facilitates the discovery of key technical dependencies, code flow, and social networks that provide the basis to determine the structure and evolution of the relationships that drive FLOSS activities and innovation.