Evolution of the number of GitHub users in Spain

TL;DR

This paper investigates the rapid growth of GitHub users in Spain, analyzing measurable factors to understand the underlying causes behind the 50% increase in user numbers over a year.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze the components contributing to GitHub user growth in Spain and distinguishes between measurement effects and other factors.

Findings

Growth is primarily due to increased measurement and visibility.

Measurable factors account for a significant portion of the growth.

The study advances understanding of community expansion dynamics.

Abstract

Since we started measuring the community of GitHub users in Spain, it has kept increasing in numbers in such a way that it has grown almost 50%, to the current 12000, in less than one year. However, the reasons for this are not clear. In this paper we will try to find out what are the different components in this growth, or at least those that can be measured, in order to find out which ones are due to the measurement itself and which might be due to other reasons. In this paper we make an advance towards finding out the reasons for this growth.