impact of installation counts on perceived quality: a case study on debian
TRANSCRIPT
Impact of Installation Counts on Perceived Quality:
A Case Study on Debian
Israel Herraiz Emad ShihabThanh H.D. NguyenAhmed E. Hassan
Intelligence throughout the lifetime of a software system
From inception to production
http://sail.cs.queensu.ca
A Unique View ofSoftware Quality in the Large
Debian has an eco-system of 16,000 packagesThousands of involved developers
~500 reported bugs per month Installation and usage are tracked
The Development Process of Debian
GCC CVS
Mozilla CVS Firefox Browser
ThunderbirdEmail
Upstream Package
GCC C Compiler
GCC CVSDebian BugDatabase
Tracking Installations
Popularity: total install countsRecent Use (Recent 30 days)
Old Use (Beyond 30 days)
Ultimate Debian Database (UDD)
Source Packages
mypkg libmypkg
mypkg
libmypkg-dev
mypkg-common
Type (Game, Dev, Editor)Priority (Essential , Optional)
Bugs (fixed, reported, forwarded)Reporter (email)
Binary Packages
Sub-linear growth (X1/constant)
Log(installations)
Log(
Bugs
)
More installations More Bugs
Log(installations)
Log(
Bugs
)
Pattern holds for optional packages
Log(installations)
Log(
Bugs
)
Essential packages
Log(installations)
Log(
Bugs
)
Pattern holds for Fixed Bugs
Log(installations)
Log(
Fixe
d Bu
gs)
Bugs increase with recent use
Recent Use
Log(
fixed
bug
s)
Bug profiles differ between package types
Technical users Casual users
Software Development Games
“With many eyes, all bugs become shallow”Eric Raymond
Bug Management OverheadVery low % of bugs are fixed for widely installed packages
Log(installations)
% o
f Fix
ed B
ugs
Sub-linear growth (X1/constant)
Log(installations)
Log(
Bugs
)
Is there a representative set of packages?
Log (installations)
Log(
Bugs
)
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