A clone management framework to improve code quality of FOSS projects

Abstract

The emergence of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) development model as a widely adopted paradigm in the software development industry in the recent few years has developed the interest of researchers towards the code quality of FOSS projects. Code clones are introduced in the software system by the adoption of common code reuse practices by FOSS developers. This has led the clone research community to observe the effects of code clones on the code quality of FOSS projects. Although code clones are not always harmful but they might become critical to large scale and evolving software systems such as FOSS projects. Research in this paper reveals the importance and need for improving code quality of FOSS projects by implementing an effective clone management system integrated in the FOSS development environment. This paper proposes a clone management framework that ensures effective clone evolution tracking and visualization in FOSS projects. This framework will appear as a baseline to initiate the efforts towards improving code quality by the implementation of a versatile clone management system for FOSS development.