Article

Succession: Measuring transfer of code and developer productivity

Author:

Audris MockusAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE '09: Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Software Engineering

Pages 67 - 77

https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE.2009.5070509

Published: 16 May 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Code ownership transfer or succession is a crucial ingredient in open source code reuse and in offshoring projects. Measuring succession can help understand factors that affect the success of such transfers and suggest ways to make them more efficient. We propose and evaluate several methods to measure succession based on the chronology and traces of developer activities. Using ten instances of offshoring succession identified through interviews, we find that the best succession measure can accurately pinpoint the most likely mentors. We model the productivity ratio of more than 1000 developer pairs involved in the succession to test conjectures formulated using the organizational socialization theory and find the ratio to decrease for instances of offshoring and for mentors who have worked primarily on a single project or have transferred ownership for their non-primary project code, thus supporting a theory-based conjectures and providing practical suggestions on how to improve succession.

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Cited By

Green CJaspan CHodges MHe LShen DZhang N(2023)Developer Productivity for Humans, Part 5: Onboarding and Ramp-UpIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2023.329115840:5(13-19)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MS.2023.3291158
Zhang YLiu HTan XZhou MJin ZZhu J(2022)Turnover of Companies in OpenStack: Prevalence and RationaleACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/351084931:4(1-24)Online publication date: 12-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510849
Calefato FIaffaldano GTrisolini LLanubile F(2022)An In-Depth Analysis of Occasional and Recurring Collaborations in Online Music Co-creationACM Transactions on Social Computing10.1145/34938004:4(1-40)Online publication date: 29-Jan-2022
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Index Terms

Succession: Measuring transfer of code and developer productivity
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Management of computing and information systems
      1. Project and people management
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software creation and management
    1. Collaboration in software development
      1. Programming teams

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE '09: Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Software Engineering

May 2009

643 pages

ISBN:9781424434534

Sponsors

SIGSOFT: ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering

Publisher

IEEE Computer Society

United States

Publication History

Published: 16 May 2009

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Overall Acceptance Rate 276 of 1,856 submissions, 15%

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Cited By

Green CJaspan CHodges MHe LShen DZhang N(2023)Developer Productivity for Humans, Part 5: Onboarding and Ramp-UpIEEE Software10.1109/MS.2023.329115840:5(13-19)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MS.2023.3291158
Zhang YLiu HTan XZhou MJin ZZhu J(2022)Turnover of Companies in OpenStack: Prevalence and RationaleACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology10.1145/351084931:4(1-24)Online publication date: 12-Jul-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3510849
Calefato FIaffaldano GTrisolini LLanubile F(2022)An In-Depth Analysis of Occasional and Recurring Collaborations in Online Music Co-creationACM Transactions on Social Computing10.1145/34938004:4(1-40)Online publication date: 29-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3493800
Guizani MChatterjee ATrinkenreich BMay MNoa-Guevara GRussell LCuevas Zambrano GIzquierdo-Cortazar DSteinmacher IGerosa MSarma A(2021)The Long Road Ahead: Ongoing Challenges in Contributing to Large OSS Organizations and What to DoProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34795515:CSCW2(1-30)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479551
Dey TMousavi SPonce EFry TVasilescu BFilippova AMockus A(2020)Detecting and Characterizing Bots that Commit CodeProceedings of the 17th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories10.1145/3379597.3387478(209-219)Online publication date: 29-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3379597.3387478
Mirsaeedi ERigby PRothermel GBae D(2020)Mitigating turnover with code review recommendationProceedings of the ACM/IEEE 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/3377811.3380335(1183-1195)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3377811.3380335
Duarte CSutton SArmbrust OHebig R(2019)The quest for productivity in software engineeringProceedings of the International Conference on Software and System Processes10.1109/ICSSP.2019.00027(145-154)Online publication date: 25-May-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/ICSSP.2019.00027
Hilton MBegel APaulisch FBosch J(2018)A study of the organizational dynamics of software teamsProceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice10.1145/3183519.3183527(191-200)Online publication date: 27-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3183519.3183527
Ma YChaudron MCrnkovic IChechik MHarman M(2018)Constructing supply chains in open source softwareProceedings of the 40th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceeedings10.1145/3183440.3183454(458-459)Online publication date: 27-May-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3183440.3183454
Tan XQin HZhou MMei HLyu JJin ZZhao W(2017)Understanding the Variation of Software Development TasksProceedings of the 9th Asia-Pacific Symposium on Internetware10.1145/3131704.3131719(1-6)Online publication date: 23-Sep-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3131704.3131719
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