research-article

How do software ecosystems evolve? a quantitative assessment of the r ecosystem.

Authors:

Konstantinos Plakidas,

Srdjan Stevanetic,

Tudor B. Ionescu,

Uwe ZdunAuthors Info & Claims

SPLC '16: Proceedings of the 20th International Systems and Software Product Line Conference

Pages 89 - 98

https://doi.org/10.1145/2934466.2934488

Published: 16 September 2016 Publication History

Abstract

In this work we advance the understanding of software eco-systems research by examining the structure and evolution of the R statistical computing open-source ecosystem. Our research attempts to shed light on the following intriguing question: what makes software ecosystems successful? The approach we follow is to perform a quantitative analysis of the R ecosystem. R is a well-established and popular ecosystem, whose community and marketplace are steadily growing. We assess and quantify the ecosystem throughout its history, and derive metrics on its core software components, the marketplace as well as its community. We use our insights to make observations that are applicable to ecosystems in general, validate existing theories from the literature, and propose a predictive model for the evolution of software packages. Our results show that the success of the ecosystem relies on a strong commitment by a small core of users who support a large and growing community.

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Cited By

Belo ÍAlves C(2024)Strategic Patterns to Foster the Evolution of Emerging Software EcosystemsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.2747Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2747
Lumbard KGermonprez MGoggins S(2023)An empirical investigation of social comparison and open source community healthInformation Systems Journal10.1111/isj.1248534:2(499-532)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12485
Gayle VConnelly R(2022)The Stark realities of reproducible statistically orientated sociological research: Some newer rules of the sociological methodMethodological Innovations10.1177/2059799122111168115:3(207-221)Online publication date: 9-Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/20597991221111681
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

How do software ecosystems evolve? a quantitative assessment of the r ecosystem.
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Software system structures
      1. Software architectures

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cover image ACM Other conferences

SPLC '16: Proceedings of the 20th International Systems and Software Product Line Conference

September 2016

367 pages

ISBN:9781450340502

DOI:10.1145/2934466

General Chair:
Hong Mei
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.: Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.
Key Laboratory of High Confidence Software Technologies: Key Laboratory of High Confidence Software Technologies, Ministry of Education
DC Holdings: Digital China Holdings Limited

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 16 September 2016

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SPLC '16

Sponsor:

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.
Key Laboratory of High Confidence Software Technologies
DC Holdings

SPLC '16: The 20th International Systems and Software Product Line Conference

September 16 - 23, 2016

Beijing, China

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Cited By

Belo ÍAlves C(2024)Strategic Patterns to Foster the Evolution of Emerging Software EcosystemsJournal of Software: Evolution and Process10.1002/smr.2747Online publication date: 28-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2747
Lumbard KGermonprez MGoggins S(2023)An empirical investigation of social comparison and open source community healthInformation Systems Journal10.1111/isj.1248534:2(499-532)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12485
Gayle VConnelly R(2022)The Stark realities of reproducible statistically orientated sociological research: Some newer rules of the sociological methodMethodological Innovations10.1177/2059799122111168115:3(207-221)Online publication date: 9-Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/20597991221111681
Linåker JPapatheocharous EOlsson T(2022)How to characterize the health of an Open Source Software project? A snowball literature review of an emerging practiceProceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Open Collaboration10.1145/3555051.3555067(1-12)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555051.3555067
Abdullai LShamshiri HMahmud HHamza MAittamaa EVuolasto JAdisa MLuukkainen RHyrynsalmi SMässeli NAzad NHaque BJoutsenlahti JLegesse WAbdelsalam AGurzhii AIkonen JJansen Svan Schothorst C(2022)A Systematic Mapping Study of Empirical Research Methods in Software EcosystemsSoftware Business10.1007/978-3-031-20706-8_13(182-195)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20706-8_13
Belo ÍAlves C(2021)How to Create a Software Ecosystem? A Partnership Meta-Model and Strategic PatternsInformation10.3390/info1206024012:6(240)Online publication date: 3-Jun-2021
https://doi.org/10.3390/info12060240
Goggins SLumbard KGermonprez M(2021)Open Source Community Health: Analytical Metrics and Their Corresponding Narratives2021 IEEE/ACM 4th International Workshop on Software Health in Projects, Ecosystems and Communities (SoHeal)10.1109/SoHeal52568.2021.00010(25-33)Online publication date: May-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/SoHeal52568.2021.00010
Beelen LJansen SOverbeek S(2021)Are You of Value to Me? A Partner Selection Reference Method for Software Ecosystem OrchestratorsScience of Computer Programming10.1016/j.scico.2021.102733(102733)Online publication date: Oct-2021
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scico.2021.102733
Cashman MFirestone JCohen MThianniwet TNiu W(2021)An empirical investigation of organic software product linesEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-021-09940-026:3Online publication date: 25-Mar-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-021-09940-0
Foundjem AAdams B(2021)Release synchronization in software ecosystemsEmpirical Software Engineering10.1007/s10664-020-09929-126:3Online publication date: 18-Mar-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-020-09929-1
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