A Study of Quality Indicator Model of Large-Scale Open Source Software Projects for Adoption Decision-making

Abstract

Abstract Open source software (OSS) usage in information systems has been essential. As OSSs are deliverables of the developer community, their quality is not guaranteed. The corporate user adopting the OSS is responsible for its quality. Thus, it is desirable to have information that the corporate could use for quantitatively assessing whether an OSS should be adopted before discussing its detailed contents thoroughly. The objective of this study is to propose an OSS quality indicator model and assessment method by monitoring the status of member raised created and closed issue sessions in the community. The proposed method is based on two axes. First, the trends are summarized in three categories, “Linear,” “Logarithmic curve,” and “Cubic curve,” with thresholds. Next, the deviation timing between the number of created and closed cases is summarized in three stages, “Early,” “Middle,” and “Late.” We attempt to improve the understanding by examining 39 large-scale OSS projects from GitHub. We derived the “T-model” as a quality indicator for OSS adoption decision-making. Assessing only these quantitative evaluations, we can see that the projects in the “Late” horizontal axis and the “Logarithm” vertical axis maintain adequate quality that can be sufficiently used for system development. Based on these results, we conclude that the T-model has shown the possibility of a quick evaluation of whether to adopt the desired OSS for corporate information system.