Debugging in OSS Always Faster

dex@ruunat writes "Damien Challet and Yann Le Du of the University of Oxford studied a model of software bug dynamics, which resulted in a paper on cond-mat this morning. In this paper they study the difference in evolution of number of bugs in open and closed source projects. They conclude: 'When the program is written from scratch, the first phase of development is characterized by a fast decline of the number of bugs, followed by a slow phase where most bugs have been fixed, hence, are hard to find'. Another, perhaps surprising conclusion is that debugging in open source projects is always faster than in closed source projects."

Comments

Re: Possible explanation?

[Black Parrot]

> Not always. A more likely explanation is the 'many eyes' that can review the code.

There probably is - in the common case - a motivational issue as well. Presumably most FOSS programmers do their work as a labor of love and take pride in their work. Surely some ECSS programmers do the same, but in my experience most of them just want to get something checked in to get their boss off their back or to free up time for a few games of Minefield before the whistle blows.

Also, in my experience, a high percentage of for-pay programmers are incompetent fuckwits that shouldn't be in the field at all. Perhaps some of those types go into FOSS programming as well, but you wouldn't expect them to last. Nepotism, brown-nosing, and other popular corporate games don't seem to work very well in the FOSS world.

I.e., the FOSS culture essentially operates on a "survival of the fittest" paradigm.