Open Source Software Development Challenges: A Systematic Literature Review on GitHub

TL;DR

This paper systematically reviews 172 studies using the GHTorrent dataset to analyze open source software development challenges on GitHub, highlighting research focuses, dataset advantages, limitations, and open issues.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive review of GHTorrent-based research on open source development challenges, categorizing studies and discussing dataset pros, cons, and open problems.

Findings

Identified key research themes in GHTorrent-based OSS studies

Highlighted dataset limitations and challenges in research

Mapped open issues and future directions in OSS development

Abstract

Git is used as the distributed version control system for many open-source software projects. One Git-based service, GitHub, is the most common code hosting and repository service for open-source software projects. For researchers that study software engineering, the content that is hosted on these platforms provides much valuable data. There are some alternatives to get GitHub data such as GitHub Archive, GitHub API or GHTorrent. Among these options, GHTorrent is the most widely known and used GitHub dataset in the literature. Although there are some review studies about software engineering challenges across the GitHub platform, no review of GHTorrent dataset-specific research is available. In this study, the 172 studies that use GHTorrent as a data source were categorized within the scope of open source software development challenges and a systematic literature review was carried out. Moreover, the pros and cons of the dataset have been indicated and the focused issues of the literature on and the open challenges have been noted.