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Continuous Integration (CI) encompasses a set of widely adopted practices that enhance software development. However, there are indications that developers may not adequately monitor CI practices. Hence, this paper explores developers'…
Studies over the past decade demonstrated that developers contributing to open source software systems tend to self-organize in "emerging" communities. This latent community structure has a significant impact on software quality. While…
Lehman's Laws teach us that a software system will become progressively less satisfying to its users over time, unless it is continually adapted to meet new needs. Understanding software maintenance can potentially relieve many of the pains…
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used as core dependencies in software systems. However, the hosted LLM services evolve continuously through provider-side updates without explicit version changes. These silent updates can…
Context: Scientific open-source software (SciOSS) plays a foundational role in research and engineering, yet its long-term sustainability has often been overlooked and remains a significant concern. Objective: This study investigates the…
Ensuring the safety and compliance of large language models (LLMs) is of paramount importance. However, existing LLM safety datasets often rely on ad-hoc taxonomies for data generation and suffer from a significant shortage of…
A tenet of open source software development is to accept contributions from users-developers (typically after appropriate vetting). But should this also include interventions done as part of research on open source development? Following an…
The widespread adoption of open source libraries and frameworks can be attributed to their licensing. Open Source Software Licenses (OSS licenses) ensure that software can be sold or distributed as part of aggregate programs from various…
Developers use Question and Answer (Q&A) websites to exchange knowledge and expertise. Stack Overflow is a popular Q&A website where developers discuss coding problems and share code examples. Although all Stack Overflow posts are free to…
Modern software development and operations rely on monitoring to understand how systems behave in production. The data provided by application logs and runtime environment are essential to detect and diagnose undesired behavior and improve…
With an ever-increasing amount of open source software, the popularity of services like GitHub that facilitate code reuse, and common misconceptions about the licensing of open source software, the problem of license violations in the code…
The rapid development of Large Language Models (LLMs) has transformed software engineering, showing promise in tasks like code generation, bug detection, and compliance checking. However, current models struggle to detect compliance…
Large language models (LLMs) are now largely involved in software development workflows, and the code they generate routinely includes third-party library (TPL) imports annotated with specific version identifiers. These version choices can…
Compliance checking is the process of determining whether a regulated entity adheres to these regulations. Currently, compliance checking is predominantly manual, requiring significant time and highly skilled experts, while still being…
Secure coding is a critical yet often overlooked practice in software development. Despite extensive awareness efforts, real-world adoption remains inconsistent due to organizational, educational, and technical barriers. This paper provides…
Modern information and communication systems have become increasingly challenging to manage. The ubiquitous system logs contain plentiful information and are thus widely exploited as an alternative source for system management. As log files…
Control code is a concept that is closely related to a frequently occurring practitioner's view on what is a program: code that is capable of controlling the behaviour of some machine. We present a logical approach to explain issues…
Software systems have grown as an indispensable commodity used across various industries, and almost all essential services depend on them for effective operation. The software is no longer an independent or stand-alone piece of code…
Participation of women in Open Source Software (OSS) is very unbalanced, despite various efforts to improve diversity. This is concerning not only because women do not get the chance of career and skill developments afforded by OSS, but…
[Context] Coupling is a widely discussed metric by software engineers while developing complex software systems, often referred to as a crucial factor and symptom of a poor or good design. Nevertheless, measuring the logical coupling among…