The allocation of collaborative efforts in open-source software

The article investigates the allocation of collaborative efforts among core developers (maintainers) of open-source software by analyzing on-line development traces (logs) for a set of 10 large projects. Specifically, we investigate whether the division of labor within open-source projects is influenced by characteristics of software code. We suggest that the collaboration among maintainers tends to be influenced by different measures of code complexity. We interpret these findings by providing preliminary evidence that the organization of open-source software development would self-adapt to characteristics of the code base, in a 'stigmergic' manner.