Myth: The loss of core developers is a critical issue for OSS communities
Olivier Nourry, Masanari Kondo, Shinobu Saito, Yukako Iimura, Naoyasu, Ubayashi, Yasutaka Kamei

TL;DR
This study investigates the stability of core developer teams in open-source software projects, revealing high turnover rates, early loss of core developers, and the challenges in attracting new core contributors, which threaten project longevity.
Contribution
It provides empirical analysis of core developer turnover in over 36,000 OSS projects, highlighting the critical early years and reliance on single core developers for project sustainability.
Findings
89% of projects lost core developers at least once
70% of core developer losses occur within the first three years
Only 27% of abandoned projects attract new core developers
Abstract
Throughout their lifetime, open-source software systems will naturally attract new contributors and lose existing contributors. Not all OSS contributors are equal, however, as some contributors within a project possess significant knowledge and expertise of the codebase (i.e., core developers). When investigating the ability of projects to attract new contributors and how often a project loses contributors, it is therefore important to take into account the expertise of the contributors. Since core developers are vital to the longevity of projects, we therefore aim to find out: can OSS projects attract new core developers and how often do OSS projects lose core developers? To investigate core developer contribution patterns, we calculate the truck factor (or bus factor) of over 36,000 OSS projects to investigate how often TF developers join or abandon OSS projects. We find that 89% of…
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Taxonomy
TopicsScientific Computing and Data Management · Advanced Malware Detection Techniques · Software System Performance and Reliability
