In Open Source Software (OSS) development, the so-called linchpin developers are those that contribute contemporaneously to several projects, contributing to keeping the community tied together. While such developers have been identified in previous research, their importance within the OSS community has not been widely discussed. The main objective of this work is to analyze their "weaving" role across projects. With this aim, we mined software repositories, using text mining techniques as log-likehood ratio and co-word analysis, further building social networks of developers within emerging communities. The findings show that linchpin developers generally attach in a preferential way to projects in a single specific domain. They tend to be more "project managers", and "allhands-persons", meaning that they bring multidisciplinary experience across projects. They tend to cover the same role across projects. They generally have high centrality in their projects, and contribute to create projects that ease the transition from a fragmented projects community to a more core-periphery community.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2025 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.