TY - GEN
T1 - What Attracts Newcomers to Onboard on OSS Projects? TL;DR
T2 - 15th International Conference on Open Source Systems, OSS 2019
AU - Fronchetti, Felipe
AU - Wiese, Igor
AU - Pinto, Gustavo
AU - Steinmacher, Igor
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2019.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Voluntary contributions play an important role in maintaining Open Source Software (OSS) projects active. New volunteers feel motivated to contribute to OSS projects based on a set of motivations. In this study, we aim to understand which factors OSS projects usually maintain that might influence their new contributors’ onboarding. Using a set of 450 repositories, we investigated mixed factors, such as the project age, the number of stars, the programming language used, or the presence of text files that aid contributors (e.g., templates for pull-requests or license files). We used a K-Spectral Centroid (KSC) clustering algorithm to investigated the newcomers’ growth rate for the analyzed projects. We could found three common patterns: A logarithmic, an exponential, and a linear growth pattern. Based on these patterns, we used a Random Forest classifier to understand how each factor could explain the growth rates. We found that popularity of the project (in terms of stars), time to review pull requests, project age, and programming languages are the factors that best explain the newcomers’ growth patterns.
AB - Voluntary contributions play an important role in maintaining Open Source Software (OSS) projects active. New volunteers feel motivated to contribute to OSS projects based on a set of motivations. In this study, we aim to understand which factors OSS projects usually maintain that might influence their new contributors’ onboarding. Using a set of 450 repositories, we investigated mixed factors, such as the project age, the number of stars, the programming language used, or the presence of text files that aid contributors (e.g., templates for pull-requests or license files). We used a K-Spectral Centroid (KSC) clustering algorithm to investigated the newcomers’ growth rate for the analyzed projects. We could found three common patterns: A logarithmic, an exponential, and a linear growth pattern. Based on these patterns, we used a Random Forest classifier to understand how each factor could explain the growth rates. We found that popularity of the project (in terms of stars), time to review pull requests, project age, and programming languages are the factors that best explain the newcomers’ growth patterns.
KW - Attractiveness
KW - Newcomers
KW - Open Source Software
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85068995610&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85068995610&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-20883-7_9
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-20883-7_9
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85068995610
SN - 9783030208820
T3 - IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology
SP - 91
EP - 103
BT - Open Source Systems - 15th IFIP WG 2.13 International Conference, OSS 2019, Proceedings
A2 - Bordeleau, Francis
A2 - Sillitti, Alberto
A2 - Meirelles, Paulo
A2 - Lenarduzzi, Valentina
PB - Springer New York LLC
Y2 - 26 May 2019 through 27 May 2019
ER -