Life cycle of Defects in Open Source Software Projects

Abstract

We studied the maintenance process from the viewpoint of defect management and the defect life cycle. First, we outline a model for the defect life cycle based on ISO/IEC standards, the Framework for Open Source maintenance process, and the Bugzilla defect management system. Thereafter, we analyze defects from two Open Source software projects. The aim of the study was support the maintenance reliability. However, we found that most of the defects did not follow the life-cycle model. Defects were usually directly resolved from initial state without being assigned.

Evaluation Framework for Open Source Software Maintenance

“…So, they provide large amount of data that can be used to analyze OSS maintenance process. Earlier studies have presented several methods that can be used for analysis of maintenance process through project characteristics [5], type of the defects [7], defect life cycles [8], and change origin [10]. Our framework adapts methods from these studies and combines them to a framework.…”

“…Traceable defect life cycle covers all major activities that are verification, analysis, implementation and quality assurance. According to our previous research [6,8] defect life cycle should have four states that describe maintenance activities. These states are presented in the Table 1 with started activities.…”

“…Our earlier studies [8] on OSS have presented a general overview of the OSS maintenance processes where these processes were managed with defect management and version management systems. The overview of processes is presented in the Section 2.…”

“…The proportion of enhancive maintenance [7] was found is low in cases, which showed that software were mature. The traceability of defect management process was evaluated through the defect life cycle [8] and study showed that maintenance activities were not traceable due insufficient usage of the defect management system. The analysis of source code changes and their origin [10] showed that most of the changes were not related to the defect reports.…”

Maintenance support in open source software projects

“…analyzability, changeability, stability, testability, and maintainability compliance [3]. Koponen [4] discusses defect management and version management system as an integral part of OSS maintenance process. Aberdour [5] observes that the open source software model has led to the creation of significant pieces of software, and many of these applications show levels of quality comparable to closed source software development.…”