Empirical study of software quality evolution in open source projects using agile practices

Abstract

We analyse the time evolution of two open source Java projects: Eclipse and Netbeans, both developed following agile practices, though to a different extent. Our study is centered on quality analysis of the systems, measured as defects absence, and its relation with software metrics evolution. The two projects are described through a software graph in which nodes are represented by Java files and edges describe the existing relation between nodes. We propose a metrics suite for Java files based on Chidamber and Kemerer suite, and use it to study software evolution and its relationship with bug count.