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Beyond fixing bugs: case studies of creative collaboration in open source software bug fixing processes

Authors:

Jing Wang,

John M. CarrollAuthors Info & Claims

C&C '11: Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Creativity and cognition

Pages 397 - 398

https://doi.org/10.1145/2069618.2069714

Published: 03 November 2011 Publication History

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Abstract

Bug fixing is an important collaborative practice of open source software development. Creative collaborative bug fixing---collectively generating new and useful solutions to improve software quality---is important especially when bugs are difficult to fix. We find bug fixing practices are unavoidably creative by studying Mozilla and Python. We characterize their bug fixing process as four common subprocesses, problem identification, preparation, solution generation, and solution evaluation. We discuss the key challenges of creative collaboration during each subprocess, and recommend design implications to enhance creative collaborative bug fixing processes, including support for establishment of common ground, externalization of social networks, awareness of resolving progress, and articulation of design rationale.

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Francalanci, C. and Merlo, F. Empirical Analysis of the Bug Fixing Process in Open Source Projects. Open Source Development, Communities and Quality. 187--196.

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Moon, J.Y. and Sproull, L. Essence of Distributed Work: The Case of the Linux Kernel. First Monday, 5 (11).

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Raymond, E.S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. O'Reilly, 2001.

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Cited By

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Zanetti MScholtes ITessone CSchweitzer FNotkin DCheng BPohl K(2013)Categorizing bugs with social networks: a case study on four open source software communitiesProceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering10.5555/2486788.2486930(1032-1041)Online publication date: 18-May-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2486788.2486930
Zanetti MScholtes ITessone CSchweitzer F(2013)Categorizing bugs with social networks: A case study on four open source software communities2013 35th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)10.1109/ICSE.2013.6606653(1032-1041)Online publication date: May-2013
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE.2013.6606653

Index Terms

Beyond fixing bugs: case studies of creative collaboration in open source software bug fixing processes
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing and business
      1. Computer supported cooperative work

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Published In

C&C '11: Proceedings of the 8th ACM conference on Creativity and cognition

November 2011

492 pages

ISBN:9781450308205

DOI:10.1145/2069618

General Chair:
Ashok K. Goel
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Fox Harrell
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
,
Brian Magerko
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
,
Yukari Nagai
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan
,
Jane Prophet
Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

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Published: 03 November 2011

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C&C '11: Creativity and Cognition 2011

November 3 - 6, 2011

Georgia, Atlanta, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 108 of 371 submissions, 29%

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Zanetti MScholtes ITessone CSchweitzer FNotkin DCheng BPohl K(2013)Categorizing bugs with social networks: a case study on four open source software communitiesProceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Software Engineering10.5555/2486788.2486930(1032-1041)Online publication date: 18-May-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2486788.2486930
Zanetti MScholtes ITessone CSchweitzer F(2013)Categorizing bugs with social networks: A case study on four open source software communities2013 35th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)10.1109/ICSE.2013.6606653(1032-1041)Online publication date: May-2013
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE.2013.6606653

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Recommendations

Are Developers Fixing Their Own Bugs?: Tracing Bug-Fixing and Bug-Seeding Committers

Classifying field crash reports for fixing bugs: A case study of Mozilla Firefox

Discovering, reporting, and fixing performance bugs

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