Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments

John Businge; Ahmed Zerouali; Alexandre Decan; Tom Mens; Serge Demeyer; Coen De Roover

doi:10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00105

Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments

John Businge, Ahmed Zerouali, Alexandre Decan, Tom Mens, Serge Demeyer, Coen De Roover

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference paper

2 Citations (Scopus)

105 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Social coding platforms centred around git provide explicit facilities to share code between projects: forks, pull requests, cherry-picking to name but a few. Variant forks are an interesting phenomenon in that respect, as they permit for different projects to peacefully co-exist, yet explicitly acknowledge the common ancestry. Several researchers analysed forking practices on open source platforms and observed that variant forks get created frequently. However, little is known on the motivations for launching such a variant fork. Is it mainly technical (e.g., diverging features), governance (e.g., diverging interests), legal (e.g., diverging licences), or do other factors come into play? We report the results of an exploratory qualitative analysis on the motivations behind creating and maintaining variant forks. We surveyed 105 maintainers of different active open source variant projects hosted on GitHub. Our study extends previous findings, identifying a number of fine-grained common motivations for launching a variant fork and listing concrete impediments for maintaining the co-existing projects.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022)
Publisher	IEEE
Pages	867-877
Number of pages	11
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-6654-3786-8
ISBN (Print)	978-1-6654-3787-5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00105
Publication status	Published - 2022
Event	29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022) - University of Hawaii, Honolulu, United States Duration: 15 Mar 2022 → 18 Mar 2022 Conference number: 29th https://saner2022.uom.gr/

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022

Conference

Conference	29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022)
Abbreviated title	SANER
Country	United States
City	Honolulu
Period	15/03/22 → 18/03/22
Internet address	https://saner2022.uom.gr/

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work is supported by the joint FWO-Vlaanderen and F.R.S.-FNRS Excellence of Science project SECO-ASSIST under Grant number O.0157.18FRG43.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.

Copyright:
Copyright 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

Software Ecosystems
Version Repositories
Software Analytics
Empirical Software Engineering

Access to Document

10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00105

vub-tr-soft-22-03Accepted author manuscript, 393 KB

FWOEOS10: Automated Assistance for Developing Software in Ecosystems of the Future
De Roover, C., Mens, T., Demeyer, S. & Cleve, A.
1/01/18 → 31/12/21
Project: Fundamental

Cite this

Businge, J., Zerouali, A., Decan, A., Mens, T., Demeyer, S., & De Roover, C. (2022). Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments. In Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022) (pp. 867-877). (Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00105

Businge, John ; Zerouali, Ahmed ; Decan, Alexandre ; Mens, Tom ; Demeyer, Serge ; De Roover, Coen. / Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments. Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022). IEEE, 2022. pp. 867-877 (Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022).

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title = "Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments",

abstract = "Social coding platforms centred around git provide explicit facilities to share code between projects: forks, pull requests, cherry-picking to name but a few. Variant forks are an interesting phenomenon in that respect, as they permit for different projects to peacefully co-exist, yet explicitly acknowledge the common ancestry. Several researchers analysed forking practices on open source platforms and observed that variant forks get created frequently. However, little is known on the motivations for launching such a variant fork. Is it mainly technical (e.g., diverging features), governance (e.g., diverging interests), legal (e.g., diverging licences), or do other factors come into play? We report the results of an exploratory qualitative analysis on the motivations behind creating and maintaining variant forks. We surveyed 105 maintainers of different active open source variant projects hosted on GitHub. Our study extends previous findings, identifying a number of fine-grained common motivations for launching a variant fork and listing concrete impediments for maintaining the co-existing projects.",

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year = "2022",

doi = "10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00105",

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Businge, J, Zerouali, A, Decan, A, Mens, T, Demeyer, S & De Roover, C 2022, Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments. in Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022). Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022, IEEE, pp. 867-877, 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022), Honolulu, United States, 15/03/22. https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00105

Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments. / Businge, John; Zerouali, Ahmed; Decan, Alexandre; Mens, Tom; Demeyer, Serge; De Roover, Coen.

Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022). IEEE, 2022. p. 867-877 (Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference paper

TY - GEN

T1 - Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments

AU - Businge, John

AU - Zerouali, Ahmed

AU - Decan, Alexandre

AU - Mens, Tom

AU - Demeyer, Serge

AU - De Roover, Coen

N1 - Conference code: 29th

PY - 2022

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N2 - Social coding platforms centred around git provide explicit facilities to share code between projects: forks, pull requests, cherry-picking to name but a few. Variant forks are an interesting phenomenon in that respect, as they permit for different projects to peacefully co-exist, yet explicitly acknowledge the common ancestry. Several researchers analysed forking practices on open source platforms and observed that variant forks get created frequently. However, little is known on the motivations for launching such a variant fork. Is it mainly technical (e.g., diverging features), governance (e.g., diverging interests), legal (e.g., diverging licences), or do other factors come into play? We report the results of an exploratory qualitative analysis on the motivations behind creating and maintaining variant forks. We surveyed 105 maintainers of different active open source variant projects hosted on GitHub. Our study extends previous findings, identifying a number of fine-grained common motivations for launching a variant fork and listing concrete impediments for maintaining the co-existing projects.

AB - Social coding platforms centred around git provide explicit facilities to share code between projects: forks, pull requests, cherry-picking to name but a few. Variant forks are an interesting phenomenon in that respect, as they permit for different projects to peacefully co-exist, yet explicitly acknowledge the common ancestry. Several researchers analysed forking practices on open source platforms and observed that variant forks get created frequently. However, little is known on the motivations for launching such a variant fork. Is it mainly technical (e.g., diverging features), governance (e.g., diverging interests), legal (e.g., diverging licences), or do other factors come into play? We report the results of an exploratory qualitative analysis on the motivations behind creating and maintaining variant forks. We surveyed 105 maintainers of different active open source variant projects hosted on GitHub. Our study extends previous findings, identifying a number of fine-grained common motivations for launching a variant fork and listing concrete impediments for maintaining the co-existing projects.

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T3 - Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022

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EP - 877

BT - Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022)

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Y2 - 15 March 2022 through 18 March 2022

ER -

Businge J, Zerouali A, Decan A, Mens T, Demeyer S, De Roover C. Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments. In Proceedings of the 29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER 2022). IEEE. 2022. p. 867-877. (Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering, SANER 2022). https://doi.org/10.1109/SANER53432.2022.00105

Variant Forks - Motivations and Impediments

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

Access to Document

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Projects

FWOEOS10: Automated Assistance for Developing Software in Ecosystems of the Future

Cite this