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Autores principales: Alami, Adam, Klockmann, Steffan, Sørensen, Lasse Rehder, Pardo, Raúl, Linåker, Johan
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09468
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author Alami, Adam
Klockmann, Steffan
Sørensen, Lasse Rehder
Pardo, Raúl
Linåker, Johan
author_facet Alami, Adam
Klockmann, Steffan
Sørensen, Lasse Rehder
Pardo, Raúl
Linåker, Johan
contents Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities' sustainability, meaning to remain operational without signs of weakening or interruptions to its development, is fundamental for the resilience and continuity of society's digital infrastructure. Many digital services and products either leverage or entirely rely on FOSS in their software stack. FOSS sustainability is a multifaceted concept, and the impact of its decline on community products is less known. In this study, we sought to understand how the different aspects of FOSS sustainability impact software quality from a life-cycle perspective. Specifically, we investigate whether and how support and incubation of FOSS projects or bypassing incubation correlate with software quality outcomes. We selected 342 FOSS projects from the Apache Software Foundation that have either graduated, retired, or bypassed their incubator program. We used 16 sustainability metrics to examine their impact on eight software quality metrics. Using Bayesian data analysis, we found that our selected sustainability metrics exhibit distinct relationships with software quality across different project trajectories. Graduated projects showed the strongest sustainability-software quality (SWQ) relationship, both during and post-incubation. In contrast, retired projects showed weaker relationships, despite receiving similar governance support. Bypassed projects, while not outperforming graduated ones, showed comparable sustainability-SWQ relationships. While structured incubation strengthens sustainability and SWQ in graduated projects, retired projects struggle to maintain strong sustainability-SWQ relationships, indicating that additional factors internal and specific to projects influence sustainability. This effect was evident among bypassed projects; their self-reliant sustainability practices yielded stronger sustainability-SWQ compared to the retired ones.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_09468
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Incubation and Beyond: A Comparative Analysis of ASF Projects Sustainability Impacts on Software Quality
Alami, Adam
Klockmann, Steffan
Sørensen, Lasse Rehder
Pardo, Raúl
Linåker, Johan
Software Engineering
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities' sustainability, meaning to remain operational without signs of weakening or interruptions to its development, is fundamental for the resilience and continuity of society's digital infrastructure. Many digital services and products either leverage or entirely rely on FOSS in their software stack. FOSS sustainability is a multifaceted concept, and the impact of its decline on community products is less known. In this study, we sought to understand how the different aspects of FOSS sustainability impact software quality from a life-cycle perspective. Specifically, we investigate whether and how support and incubation of FOSS projects or bypassing incubation correlate with software quality outcomes. We selected 342 FOSS projects from the Apache Software Foundation that have either graduated, retired, or bypassed their incubator program. We used 16 sustainability metrics to examine their impact on eight software quality metrics. Using Bayesian data analysis, we found that our selected sustainability metrics exhibit distinct relationships with software quality across different project trajectories. Graduated projects showed the strongest sustainability-software quality (SWQ) relationship, both during and post-incubation. In contrast, retired projects showed weaker relationships, despite receiving similar governance support. Bypassed projects, while not outperforming graduated ones, showed comparable sustainability-SWQ relationships. While structured incubation strengthens sustainability and SWQ in graduated projects, retired projects struggle to maintain strong sustainability-SWQ relationships, indicating that additional factors internal and specific to projects influence sustainability. This effect was evident among bypassed projects; their self-reliant sustainability practices yielded stronger sustainability-SWQ compared to the retired ones.
title Incubation and Beyond: A Comparative Analysis of ASF Projects Sustainability Impacts on Software Quality
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.09468