Decision makers often face challenges to understand open source projects, especially as data is scattered across different collaboration platforms. Two tools - GrimoireLab and CROSSMINER - were developed to overcome this challenge but were started with different goals in mind. On the one hand, GrimoireLab focused on understanding software development process within open source projects. On the other hand, CROSSMINER focused on helping software developers select the right open source projects. The meaning of project health is different in both cases. This talk is about this philosophical difference in approaching open source project health metrics, how it shaped the tools, what this means for metrics that were implemented, and what lessons can be learned about measuring open source project health.

1. GrimoireLab & CROSSMINER
Two different philosophies to measure open
source community health
{valcos, georglink}@bitergia.com
@_valcos_, @GeorgLink
CHAOSScon NA, 20th August 2019

2. /anecdote
Car, Bus, Train, or Plane?
🚙 🚌 🚂
✈

3. /the question
How can we know if an open source
community is healthy?

4. /community health
Processes
Activity
Code quality
Community
Licensing
Documentation
Popularity

5. /community tools

6. /diff. philosophies
Is a project community healthy?
Which is the healthiest projects to adopt?

7. /grimoirelab

8. /grimoirelab
chaoss.biterg.io

9. /grimoirelab
chaoss.biterg.io

10. /crossminer

11. /crossminer
scava-dev.ow2.org:8601

12. /crossminer
scava-dev.ow2.org:8601

13. /crossminer

14. /comparison
● Community metrics
● Fine-grained data
● Reactive metric
calculation
● Multi project
aggregation
● Code quality metrics
● Coarse-grained data
● Pre-determined, daily
metric calculation
● Mono project
aggregation
● Quality models

15. /comparison
● Fine-grained data
● Reactive metric
calculation
● Community metrics
● Multi project
aggregation
● Coarse-grained data
● Fixed metric
calculation (daily)
● Code quality metrics
● Mono project
aggregation
● Quality models
A quality model simplifies comparing
many projects across different indicators
of community health.

16. /lessons learned
Has multiple meanings
Shapes the indicators and metrics
Influences technical implementations
Can be summarized by a quality model
Community
Health

17. /discussion
Your reaction?
What philosophies have you seen?
CHAOSS metric standard across software?
Metric implementation transfer?
Re-use of data in different designs?

18. Valerio Cosentino, Georg Link
{valcos, georglink}@bitergia.com
@_valcos_, @GeorgLink
Thank you! Enjoy CHAOSScon!
@grimoirelab
@bitergia
@CHAOSSproj
@crossminer