Popularity and Innovation in Maven Central

TL;DR

This paper investigates the dynamics of influential components in Maven Central, revealing that while elite dependencies are dynamic and innovation slows over time, the ecosystem remains active and healthy.

Contribution

It introduces metrics to analyze dependency influence and innovation, showing that elites change over time and innovation persists despite slowing.

Findings

Elites in Maven Central are dynamic and change over time.

The rate of innovation in Maven Central is decreasing as the repository ages.

The ecosystem remains healthy despite slowing innovation.

Abstract

Maven Central is a large popular repository of Java components that has evolved over the last 20 years. The distribution of dependencies indicates that the repository is dominated by a relatively small number of components other components depend on. The question is whether those elites are static, or change over time, and how this relates to innovation in the Maven ecosystem. We study those questions using several metrics. We find that elites are dynamic, and that the rate of innovation is slowing as the repository ages but remains healthy.