Analyzing rich-club behavior in open source projects
Mattia Gasparini, Javier Luis Izquierdo, Robert Clarisó, Marco Brambilla, Jordi Cabot · 2019
The network of collaborations in an open source project can reveal relevant emergent properties that influence its prospects of success. In this work, we analyze open source projects to determine whether they exhibit a rich-club behavior, i.e., a phenomenon where contributors with a high number of collaborations (i.e., strongly connected within the collaboration network) are likely to cooperate with other well-connected individuals. The presence or absence of a rich-club has an impact on the sustainability and robustness of the project.