Modularity of Code X Collective Ownership: An Empirical Study on Popular Open Source Projects

• Igor Muzetti Pereira UFOP
• Carla Sanches Nere dos Santos UFOP
• Vicente José Peixoto de Amorim UFOP

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/semish.2020.11320

Abstract

Collective code ownership is a standard software development practice in open source systems. Throughout the construction of the code, a contribution network is created, an association between developers and the system modules. This article lists in a simple matrix the modules of a software system, retrieved from its source code, with the main developers of each one. These matrices provide a simple and quick way to reason about responsibilities and modules. A tool to recover such an array is presented. Also, twelve examples and applications of the matrices in GitHub?s Open-Source Projects are discussed, demonstrating their applicability.

Keywords: GitHub, Code Modularity, Open-source

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