PhysOrg: Research Looks at How Open Source Software Gets Written

“A group of UC Davis researchers has just received a three-year,
$750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study how
open source software such as the Apache Web server is built.

“Unlike a cathedral or an airliner, there is no ‘blueprint’ for
a piece of open source software that shows all the parts in
relation to each other, said Premkumar Devanbu, a professor of
computer science at UC Davis and a principal investigator on the
grant. Typically, a small group of programmers looks after the core
elements of the system, and the rest is broken up into modules that
are attacked by a floating group of volunteers who report flaws and
suggest modifications…”

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