Developer experience · Comparative empirical case study using archival email, source-code change history, and problem-report data from Apache and Mozilla, with hypotheses first developed from Apache and then examined/refined using Mozilla and comparisons with commercial projects.
Two case studies of open source software development: Apache and Mozilla
ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology · 2002
Summary
Open-source development showed broad participation but a concentrated core: Apache's top 15 developers contributed more than 83% of modification requests and about 88% of added lines, while defect repair involved a wider community; the authors quantify productivity, defect density, and repair intervals and use the results to discuss high-performance commercial/open-source hybrids.
For your marketing
Possible founder application
Design contribution funnels that distinguish core maintainers from broad bug reporters and occasional contributors; measure contributor concentration, review/repair participation, and defect-response time when building an OSS-backed developer tool or data product.
Reported result
What the study found
Open-source development showed broad participation but a concentrated core: Apache's top 15 developers contributed more than 83% of modification requests and about 88% of added lines, while defect repair involved a wider community; the authors quantify productivity, defect density, and repair intervals and use the results to discuss high-performance commercial/open-source hybrids.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How are participation, core-team structure, code ownership, productivity, defect density, and problem-resolution intervals organized in major open-source projects, and what can Apache and Mozilla reveal about open-source/commercial process hybrids?
Design
Comparative empirical case study using archival email, source-code change history, and problem-report data from Apache and Mozilla, with hypotheses first developed from Apache and then examined/refined using Mozilla and comparisons with commercial projects.
Sample and setting
Two open-source projects: Apache (about 6,000 modification requests, 18,000 deltas, 220,000 lines added over 3 years, 388 developers) and selected Mozilla modules (including modules with 8–174 developers); the study also compares Apache with five commercial projects.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Observational case-study evidence from two projects and selected commercial comparisons; project selection, historical context, archival measurement choices, and the concentration of work in particular modules limit generalization and do not establish causal superiority of open source.
Research sources
ACM record supplies exact bibliographic data and abstract: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/567793.567795; author-hosted paper supplies methods, sample figures, and results: https://mockus.us/papers/mozilla.pdf Firecrawl research job 01a14371-854f-71aa-ba3d-455ec397717d returned this citation and metadata.