Exploring information from OSS repositories and platforms to support OSS selection decisions

Abstract

ContextIndividuals and organizations are increasingly adopting Open Source Software (OSS) for the benefits it provides. Although the OSS evaluation process and the information it requires are nowadays well known, users still have problems finding the right information and are not supported by any decision support system. ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to bridge the gap between OSS adoption models, especially with the aim of supporting users in evaluating the OSS they are planning to select. MethodTo reach this aim, we studied the processes and the information considered by the major OSS assessment models. Then we carried out a case study to identify which information can be automatically retrieved from the main OSS platforms, namely GitHub, SonarCloud, and StackExchange. Finally, we characterized the maturity of the projects available on these three platforms. ResultsProjects available on the three platforms are commonly old, stable, and mature ones. Moreover, thanks to the API provided, we were able to extract most of the information not commonly accessible from the main website. ConclusionsOur results confirm that it is possible to develop a decision support system based on these three platforms, and that is also possible to evaluate both the quality and the maturity of the projects available there.