A Multi-level Dataset of Linux Kernel Patchwork

Abstract

In many open source software projects (e.g., the Linux kernel), people contribute by sending code patches to the community. The community evaluates these contributions and decides whether to integrate the changes. To improve the efficiency of code contributions, substantial effort has been devoted to analyzing how patches are submitted and processed. Patch data are critical for this type of analysis, while retrieving and cleaning the data is a non-trivial job. To facilitate these studies, we share a multi-level dataset of a Linux kernel patchwork covering a nine-year history of patches and related discussion recorded by the Linux kernel mailing list (LKML). The data and scripts are provided at: https://zenodo.org/record/1165576