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Dependency networks (Heckerman et al., 2000) are potential probabilistic graphical models for systems comprising a large number of variables. Like Bayesian networks, the structure of a dependency network is represented by a directed graph,…
Current software supply chains heavily rely on open-source packages hosted in public repositories. Given the popularity of ecosystems like npm and PyPI, malicious users started to spread malware by publishing open-source packages containing…
The package manager (PM) is crucial to most technology stacks, acting as a broker to ensure that a verified dependency package is correctly installed, configured, or removed from an application. Diversity in technology stacks has led to…
Practitioners often struggle with the overwhelming number of security practices outlined in cybersecurity frameworks for risk mitigation. Given the limited budget, time, and resources, practitioners want to prioritize the adoption of…
Although using third-party libraries is common practice when writing software, vulnerabilities may be found even in well-known libraries. Detected vulnerabilities are often fixed quickly in the library code. The easiest way to include these…
While large language models (LLMs) have shown considerable promise in code generation, real-world software development demands advanced repository-level reasoning. This includes understanding dependencies, project structures, and managing…
As modern software extensively uses open source packages, developers regularly pull in new upstream code through frequent updates. While a manual review of all upstream changes may not be practical, developers may rely on the authors' and…
Open-source software (OSS) is widely spread in industry, research, and government. OSS represents an effective development model because it harnesses the decentralized efforts of many developers in a way that scales. As OSS developers work…
One of the biggest strength of many modern programming languages is their rich open source package ecosystem. Indeed, modern language-specific package managers have made it much easier to share reusable code and depend on components written…
Maven artifacts are immutable: an artifact that is uploaded on Maven Central cannot be removed nor modified. The only way for developers to upgrade their library is to release a new version. Consequently, Maven Central accumulates all the…
Selecting third-party software packages in open-source ecosystems like Python is challenging due to the large number of alternatives and limited transparent evidence for comparison. Generative AI tools are increasingly used in development…
To comply with high productivity demands, software developers reuse free open-source software (FOSS) code to avoid reinventing the wheel when incorporating software features. The reliance on FOSS reuse has been shown to improve productivity…
Software ecosystems are collections of projects that are developed and evolve together in the same environment. Existing literature investigates software ecosystems as isolated entities whose boundaries do not overlap and assumes they are…
The sustainability of libraries is critical for modern software development, yet many libraries face abandonment, posing significant risks to dependent projects. This study explores the prevalence and patterns of library abandonment in the…
Hyrum's law states a common observation in the software industry: "With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody".…
Pre-trained models (PTMs) are machine learning models that have been trained in advance, often on large-scale data, and can be reused for new tasks, thereby reducing the need for costly training from scratch. Their widespread adoption…
The degree of dependencies among the modules of a software system is a key attribute to characterize its design structure and its ability to evolve over time. Several design problems are often correlated with undesired dependencies among…
Open-source software (OSS) dependencies are a dominant component of modern software code bases. Using proven and well-tested OSS components lets developers reduce development time and cost while improving quality. However, heavy reliance on…
The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) has led to the widespread deployment of LLM-based systems across diverse domains. As these systems proliferate, understanding the risks associated with their complex supply chains is increasingly…
The adoption of third-party libraries has become integral to modern software development, leading to large ecosystems such as PyPI, NPM, and Maven, where contributors typically share the technical expertise to sustain extensions. In…