CHS: Medium: Collaborative Research: SDI-CPR: Sustaining Digital Infrastructure as a Common Pool Resource

这项研究将为评估、监控和发出关键开源软件基础设施状况的信号提供强有力的科学基础，目的是增强其可持续性。作为一个社会，我们越来越依赖开源的数字基础设施来连接互联网，并在经济的各个领域提供产品和服务。如果我们要避免由安全错误或数据丢失小故障引起的灾难，并为软件产品的开发提供可预测的、稳定的基础，那么我们必须开发有效的方法来监视这个基础结构的状态，并找到可行的方法来确保它的持续支持。长期以来，人们一直认为，由于个人理性而集体破坏性的“公地悲剧”行为，即资源过度使用、供应不足和枯竭，共同拥有的资源注定会严重投资不足。与理论预测并在世界上发生的许多灾难相反，也有一些现有社区成功地维持了共同拥有的资源。这项研究将确定基础设施，并提供信号，使志愿者和公司能够采取有效行动，同时也向潜在的资助者展示他们最需要的地方。概念上的出发点是共同资源（CPR）框架，即指导如何有效管理共同拥有的资源以避免枯竭的经济原则。这个框架将被用作理解如何可持续地使用开源维护工作的视角。这一综合研究计划将：(1)对几乎所有开源存储库进行普查，以确定广泛依赖的网络和基础设施；(2)制定措施和预测模型，表明维护基础设施所需的努力何时何地不足；(3)对开源生态系统进行混合方法研究，重点关注影响基础设施可持续性的实践、规范、规则和行动；(4)以有限的规模设计、开发和部署监测能力，向参与者发出基础设施状态的信号；(5)部署建模服务，允许支持者和用户预测使用或支持项目的连锁反应；(6)评估监测和信号部署对可持续性实践的影响。该项目将做出五个关键的研究贡献：(1)将CPR框架扩展到数字领域，在数字领域，它受到规模、资源差异化（熟练的努力）和资源嵌入网络依赖关系的挑战；(2)开发识别基础设施及其与依赖基础设施的生态系统的连接的算法；(3)通过揭示脆弱性和资源严重缺乏为更好的决策提供基础；(4)揭示管理基础设施工作的各种规范、规则和实践，以及它们如何受到基础设施状态信号的影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research will provide a strong scientific basis for assessing, monitoring, and signaling the condition of critical open source software infrastructure with the aim of enhancing its sustainability. As a society, we rely increasingly on open source digital infrastructure for Internet connectivity and for products and services in every sector of the economy. It is crucial that we develop effective ways of monitoring the state of this infrastructure and find viable ways to ensure its continued support if we are to avoid disasters caused by security bugs or data-loss glitches, and to provide a predictable, stable foundation for the development of software products. It was long thought that jointly held resources were doomed to serious underinvestment because of the individually rational yet collectively destructive "tragedy of the commons" behavior, where resources are overused, under provisioned, and depleted. Running counter to the many disasters, predicted by theory and played out in the world, there are also existing communities that successfully sustain jointly held resources. This research will identify infrastructure and provide signals that will enable volunteers and companies to take effective action, also showing potential funders where they are most needed. The conceptual starting point is the framework of common pool resources (CPR) - economic principles governing how resources that are jointly held can be managed effectively in order to avoid depletion. This framework will be used as a lens to understand how open source maintenance effort can be used sustainably. This integrated program of research will: (1) conduct and use a census of virtually all open source repositories to identify networks and infrastructure widely relied upon; (2) develop measures and predictive models indicating when and where the effort needed to maintain the infrastructure is in short supply; (3) conduct mixed-method studies of open source ecosystems focused on practices, norms, rules, and actions influencing infrastructure sustainability; (4) design, develop, and deploy at limited scale a monitoring capability to signal infrastructure status to participants; (5) deploy a modeling service that will allow supporters and users to predict the ripple effects of using or supporting projects; and (6) assess the impact of the monitoring and signaling deployment on sustainability practices. The project will make five key research contributions: (1) extend the CPR framework into the digital realm, where it is challenged by scale, by the differentiation of the resource (skilled effort), and by the embedding of the resource in network dependencies; (2) develop algorithms for identifying infrastructure and its connections to the ecosystem depending on it; (3) provide a foundation for better decision-making by exposing fragility and critical lack of resources; and (4) bring to light the variety of norms, rules, and practices for managing infrastructure effort and how they are impacted by signals of infrastructure status.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.