The Total Growth of Open Source

Software development is undergoing a major change away from a fully closed software process towards a process that incorporates open source software in products and services. Just how significant is that change? To answer this question we need to look at the overall growth of open source as well as its growth rate. In this paper, we quantitatively analyze the growth of more than 5000 active and popular open source software projects. We show that the total amount of source code as well as the total number of open source projects is growing at an exponential rate. Previous research showed linear and quadratic growth in lines of source code of individual open source projects. Our work shows that open source is expanding into new domains and applications at an exponential rate.

[1]  Chanchal K. Roy,et al.  Evaluating the Evolution of Small Scale Open Source Software Systems , 2005 .

[2]  Qiang Tu,et al.  Growth, evolution, and structural change in open source software , 2001, IWPSE '01.

[3]  Stephen R. Walli,et al.  The Growth of Open Source Software in Organizations , 2005 .

[4]  Karim R. Lakhani,et al.  Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects , 2003 .

[5]  Ernan Haruvy,et al.  Incentives for Developers’ Contributions and Product Performance Metrics in Open Source Development: An Empirical Exploration , 2005 .

[6]  Brian Fitzgerald,et al.  OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IN THE TRENCHES: LESSONS FROM A LARGE-SCALE OSS IMPLEMENTATION 1 , 2003 .

[7]  Walt Scacchi,et al.  Understanding Open Source Software Evolution 181 , 2006 .

[8]  Brian Fitzgerald,et al.  Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects , 2007 .

[9]  Giancarlo Succi,et al.  Preliminary Results from an Empirical Study on the Growth of Open Source and Commercial Software Products , 2001 .

[10]  Jesús M. González-Barahona,et al.  Evolution and growth in large libre software projects , 2005, Eighth International Workshop on Principles of Software Evolution (IWPSE'05).

[11]  Kevin Crowston,et al.  Open source software projects as virtual organisations: competency rallying for software development , 2002, IEE Proc. Softw..

[12]  Stefano Comino,et al.  From Planning to Mature: On the Determinants of Open Source Take-Off , 2007 .

[13]  Stefan Koch,et al.  Evolution of Open Source Software Systems - A Large-Scale Investigation , 2005 .

[14]  Dirk Riehle,et al.  Continuous Integration in Open Source Software Development , 2008, OSS.

[15]  Walt Scacchi,et al.  Understanding Open Source Software Evolution , 2003 .

[16]  Jesús M. González-Barahona,et al.  Mining large software compilations over time: another perspective of software evolution , 2006, MSR '06.

[17]  Stefan Koch,et al.  Software evolution in open source projects - a large-scale investigation , 2007, J. Softw. Maintenance Res. Pract..