Observations on patterns of development in open source software projects
Katherine J. Stewart, David P. Darcy, Sherae L. Daniel · ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes · 2005
This paper discusses a project aimed at understanding how open source software evolves by examining patterns of development and changes in releases over time. The methodological approach of the research and initial observations are described. These include descriptions of release cycles and categorization of projects based on the overall changes in size and complexity exhibited across releases. Implications of these observations are discussed in light of prior and future work on understanding OSS evolution.