The research work investigates the validity of Lehman’s Law of Self-Regulation on
Open Source Systems (OSS). Three metrics namely incremental difference in function statement,
function count and non-comment non-blank lines of code were used to capture self-regulation property
in evolving systems. The goal is to verify if the Law of Self-regulation is valid in the context of OSS
using the aforementioned metrics. Empirical analysis was performed using historical data collected
on 354 versions of four evolving OSS. Results show that the considered Lehman’s law is valid for the
collected data and the metrics. In particular, the trend of incremental difference of the metrics
oscillates around their average incremental difference as they evolve. The oscillations are a reflection
of positive and negative feedbacks. The oscillations also depict the balance desired changes and the
resultant constraints. Evolution of OSS is a self-regulating process.
Keywords: Lehman’s law, empirical validation, open source systems, software metrics, software evolution
PAPER TITLE :INVESTIGATING SELF-REGULATION PROPERTY OF EVOLVING OPEN SOURCE SYSTEMS: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY BAJEH, A.O.*; OLATUNJI, M.A. AND OLADELE, R.O.
JOURNAL Of SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY | VOLUME 10 NUMBER 1 2019
Paper Details
- Author(s) : Bajeh, A.O.*; Olatunji, M.A. and Oladele, R.O.
- Abstract:
