Related papers: Backports: Change Types, Challenges and Strategies

Many modern software projects evolve rapidly to incorporate new features and security patches. It is important for users to update their dependencies to safer versions, but many still use older, vulnerable package versions because upgrading…

Maintaining software is an ongoing process that stretches beyond the initial release. Stable software versions continuously evolve to fix bugs, add improvements, address security issues, and ensure compatibility. This ongoing support…

GitHub introduced the suggestion feature to enable reviewers to explicitly suggest code modifications in pull requests. These suggestions make the reviewers' feedback more actionable for the submitters and represent a valuable knowledge for…

GitHub recommends that projects adopt a security file that outlines vulnerability reporting procedures. However, the effectiveness and operational challenges of such files are not yet fully understood. This study aims to clarify the…

[Background] In large open-source software projects, development knowledge is often fragmented across multiple artefacts and contributors such that individual stakeholders are generally unaware of the full breadth of the product features.…

Context: Pull-based development model is widely used in open source, leading the trends in distributed software development. One aspect which has garnered significant attention is studies on pull request decision - identifying factors for…

In open-source projects, anyone can contribute, so it is important to have an active continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline in addition to a protocol for reporting security concerns, especially in projects that are…

Refactoring is a common practice in software development, aimed at improving the internal code structure in order to make it easier to understand and modify. Consequently, it is often assumed that refactoring makes the code less prone to…

Software projects frequently use automation tools to perform repetitive activities in the distributed software development process. Recently, GitHub introduced GitHub Actions, a feature providing automated workflows for software projects.…

Background: Evolution of open source projects frequently depends on a small number of core developers. The loss of such core developers might be detrimental for projects and even threaten their entire continuation. However, it is possible…

The pull-based development model facilitates global collaboration within open-source software projects. However, whereas it is increasingly common for software to depend on other projects in their ecosystem, most research on the pull…

The pull-based development process has become prevalent on platforms such as GitHub as a form of distributed software development. Potential contributors can create and submit a set of changes to a software project through pull requests.…

To fork a project is to copy the existing code base and move in a direction different than that of the erstwhile project leadership. Forking provides a rapid way to address new requirements by adapting an existing solution. However, it can…

Context: Software systems are in continuous evolution through source code changes to fixing bugs, adding new functionalities and improving the internal architecture. All these practices are recorded in the version history, which can be…

For teams using distributed version control systems, the right collaborative development workflows can help maintaining the long-term quality of project repositories and improving work efficiency. Despite the fact that the workflows are…

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…

Patch backporting, the process of migrating mainline security patches to older branches, is an essential task in maintaining popular open-source projects (e.g., Linux kernel). However, manual backporting can be labor-intensive, while…

ChatGPT has significantly impacted software development practices, providing substantial assistance to developers in a variety of tasks, including coding, testing, and debugging. Despite its widespread adoption, the impact of ChatGPT as an…

Modern code review is a widely used technique employed in both industrial and open-source projects to improve software quality, share knowledge, and ensure adherence to coding standards and guidelines. During code review, developers may…

Context: Backsourcing is the process of insourcing previously outsourced activities. When companies experience environmental or strategic changes, or challenges with outsourcing, backsourcing can be a viable alternative. While outsourcing…