Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona
Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona is co-founder of Bitergia, a software development
analytics company specializing in the analysis of free/open source
software projects. He also teaches and
researches at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Spain within the GSyC/LibreSoft research group. His
interests include the study of communities of software development,
with a focus on quantitative and empirical studies. He enjoys taking
photos
of the coffee he drinks around the world.
Measure your open source community’s age to keep it healthy
Your data is telling you what you need to know about turnover and age
To really grasp a free/open source software project, you need to know how the community that develops and supports it is evolving. Attracting lots of new members will be a reason for celebrating success in a young project — but you should also check whether they stick around for a long time. In mature projects, however, you can afford not attracting many new members, as long as you are retaining old ones. The ratio of experienced, long-term members to recent ones also tells you about the quality of the code and need to support members.