Visualizing Open Source Contributions

An anonymous reader writes "A student at UC Davis has created some stunning visualizations of open source software contributions, including Eclipse, Python, Apache httpd and Postgres. From the website: 'This visualization, called code_swarm, shows the history of commits in a software project. A commit happens when a developer makes changes to the code or documents and transfers them into the central project repository. Both developers and files are represented as moving elements. When a developer commits a file, it lights up and flies towards that developer. Files are colored according to their purpose, such as whether they are source code or a document. If files or developers have not been active for a while, they will fade away. A histogram at the bottom keeps a reminder of what has come before.'"

Comments

A bit silly; leaves too many questions..

[Anonymous Coward]

If a file is commited it flies towards the developer

Cool, and now I start with 1 developer and eventually add more. What exactly does determine where their place is inside the cloud? Does a developer commit and fly towards the middle or is this random? What happens if several developers commit the same file in a quick period of time? I think the idea is fun but I'm not really impressed without knowing these facts too. Without those this is merely a random animation generator based on commits, which can be compared with your standard scope on Amarok.

Re:Commits are a bad measure

[pclminion]

Yes -- at least they chose good examples to demo the technology. Apache, Python, Eclipse, and Postgres really stand out not only in terms of project size but in the quality of project MANAGEMENT.

Re:Visualizer is not open source

[pieterh]

No doubt it was beaten together. My bet is he'll land a good job somewhere doing more research into social dynamics and this particular project will never be released. And then someone will get frustrated and remake it as open source, and there will be a whole community of plug in visualizers and the FOSS community will go through a couple of years of visualizing everything until it gets as boring as fractals.

Maybe I'm wrong. But "I'll release the code once it's cleaned up" usually means "please don't bother me with requests for code, I'm on something really neat right now."

Open source help.

[WarJolt]

I've received some requests to make the application open source so that people can use it on their own software projects. I think that's a great idea. Unfortunately the ad hoc code needs lots of cleaning and I will be busy with other things in the next few months. If I have time I will look into it. I don't have the authority to speak on behalf of all of us /.ers, but I will anyway. Give it to us and we'll clean it up for you. Unless you're using code you can't release I'd like to take a look at what you got.

Re:Interesting patterns

[Anonymous Coward]

Your observation is no less relevant. Each of the projects have dramatically different management styles. The pattens you see may be like fingerprints.