Start Date

16-8-2018 12:00 AM

Description

Assessing the health of open source projects is common amongst people who engage in open source projects. This phenomenological study is the beginning of a research program that investigates open source project health. We find a lack of shared understanding of how people assess open source project health. This paper identifies four themes, namely (1) that assessing open source project health is required, (2) that it is built on the activity within a project, (3) that the process of assessing health is not clear nor well understood, and (4) that a deeper understanding of health comes from understanding aspects of community, code, and resources. This paper contributes to open source project health by documenting the universal need for assessing health, uncovering the importance of project activity, identifying the potential benefit of creating a shared understanding and process of assessing health, and confirming theoretical conceptualizations of project health.

Share

COinS
 
Aug 16th, 12:00 AM

Assessing Open Source Project Health

Assessing the health of open source projects is common amongst people who engage in open source projects. This phenomenological study is the beginning of a research program that investigates open source project health. We find a lack of shared understanding of how people assess open source project health. This paper identifies four themes, namely (1) that assessing open source project health is required, (2) that it is built on the activity within a project, (3) that the process of assessing health is not clear nor well understood, and (4) that a deeper understanding of health comes from understanding aspects of community, code, and resources. This paper contributes to open source project health by documenting the universal need for assessing health, uncovering the importance of project activity, identifying the potential benefit of creating a shared understanding and process of assessing health, and confirming theoretical conceptualizations of project health.