DUKS: unified visualizations and analyses for the Linux Kernel
Abstract
The decentralized nature of the Linux kernel’s development hinders the analysis of its maintenance model. Current tools fail to capture nuances such as the flow of commits between repositories. We propose DUKS (Dashboard for Unified Kernel Statistics), a framework that integrates data from mailing lists and git trees collected from the Software Heritage to provide new insights into the project’s health and evolution.
References
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Jiang, Y., Adams, B., and German, D. M. (2013). Will my patch make it? and how fast? case study on the linux kernel. In 2013 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), pages 101–110.
Palix, N., Saha, S., Thomas, G., Calvès, C., Lawall, J., and Muller, G. (2011). Faults in linux: Ten years later. ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, 39.
Pietri, A., Spinellis, D., and Zacchiroli, S. (2019). The Software Heritage Graph Dataset: Public Software Development Under One Roof. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 16th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), pages 138–142, Montreal, QC, Canada. IEEE.
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Rahman, M. T. and Rigby, P. C. (2014). Contrasting development and release stabilization work on the linux kernel. In International Workshop on Release Engineering.
Schneider, D., Spurlock, S., and Squire, M. (2016). Differentiating Communication Styles of Leaders on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. In Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Open Collaboration, pages 1–10, Berlin Germany. ACM.
Wen, M. S. R. (2021). What happens when the bazaar grows: a comprehensive study on the contemporary Linux kernel development model. PhD thesis, University of São Paulo.
Di Cosmo, R. and Zacchiroli, S. (2017). Software heritage: Why and how to preserve software source code. In iPRES 2017.
Dueñas, S., Cosentino, V., Robles, G., and Gonzalez-Barahona, J. M. (2018). Perceval: software project data at your will. In Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceeedings, ICSE ’18, page 1–4, New York, NY, USA. Association for Computing Machinery.
Dueñas, S., Cosentino, V., Gonzalez-Barahona, J. M., del Castillo San Felix, A., Izquierdo-Cortazar, D., Cañas-Díaz, L., and Pérez García-Plaza, A. (2021). Grimoire-lab: A toolset for software development analytics. PeerJ Computer Science, 7(e601).
Hatta, M. (2018). The role of mailing lists for policy discussions in open source development. Annals of Business Administrative Science, 17(1):31–43.
Jiang, Y., Adams, B., and German, D. M. (2013). Will my patch make it? and how fast? case study on the linux kernel. In 2013 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), pages 101–110.
Palix, N., Saha, S., Thomas, G., Calvès, C., Lawall, J., and Muller, G. (2011). Faults in linux: Ten years later. ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, 39.
Pietri, A., Spinellis, D., and Zacchiroli, S. (2019). The Software Heritage Graph Dataset: Public Software Development Under One Roof. In 2019 IEEE/ACM 16th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR), pages 138–142, Montreal, QC, Canada. IEEE.
Pinheiro, E. and Meirelles, P. (2024). Understanding group maintainership model in the linux kernel development. In Anais do XII Workshop de Visualização, Evolução e Manutenção de Software, pages 113–124, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil. SBC.
Rahman, M. T. and Rigby, P. C. (2014). Contrasting development and release stabilization work on the linux kernel. In International Workshop on Release Engineering.
Schneider, D., Spurlock, S., and Squire, M. (2016). Differentiating Communication Styles of Leaders on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. In Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Open Collaboration, pages 1–10, Berlin Germany. ACM.
Wen, M. S. R. (2021). What happens when the bazaar grows: a comprehensive study on the contemporary Linux kernel development model. PhD thesis, University of São Paulo.
Published
2025-09-22
How to Cite
PASSOS, Rafael; PILONE, Arthur; TADOKORO, David; MEIRELLES, Paulo.
DUKS: unified visualizations and analyses for the Linux Kernel. In: WORKSHOP ON SOFTWARE VISUALIZATION, EVOLUTION AND MAINTENANCE (VEM), 13. , 2025, Recife/PE.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 90-95.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/vem.2025.14637.
