Evolution of the R software ecosystem: Metrics, relationships, and their impact on qualities

Abstract Software ecosystems are an important new concept for collaborative software development, and empirical studies on their development are important towards understanding the underlying dynamics and modelling their behaviour. We conducted an explorative analysis of the R ecosystem as an exemplar on high-level, ecosystem-wide assessment. Based principally on the documentation metadata of the R packages, we generated a variety of metrics that allow the quantification of the R ecosystem. We also categorized the ecosystem participants, both in the software marketplace and in the developer community, by characteristics that measure their activity and impact. By viewing our metrics across the ecosystem’s lifecycle for the various participant categories, we discovered interrelationships between them and determined the contribution of each category to the ecosystem as a whole.

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