Modeling open source software bugs with complex networks

Abstract

A major concern in open source software development is regarding bugs emerging during the life circle of a software project. Understanding the topological characteristics of interrelated bugs can provide useful insights into software project management and potentially facilitate the development of new complex network models. In this paper, we analyze the bug network in Gentoo Linux, one of the most popular Linux distributions. We model software bugs as nodes and the blocking relationships among them as edges. As the resulting Gentoo bug network cannot be adequately explained by some commonly-used complex network models, we propose a new model, which can better explain this network.