Identifying Testing Behaviour in Open Source Projects: A Case Analysis for Apache Spark

Asli Sari, Ayse Tosun, Gülfem Işıklar Alptekin

2025

Abstract

Open Source Software (OSS) projects have the potential to achieve high software quality through community collaboration. However, the collaborative nature of OSS development presents unique challenges, particularly in maintaining software quality through testing practices. The lack of formal testing roles and structures underscores the importance of understanding testing patterns to enhance project quality. To address this need, our study investigates key aspects of testing contributions within Apache Spark project. The study aims to identify the top testing contributors responsible for the majority of test-related commits, as well as their engagement levels and evolving testing focus over time. Additionally, it examines how these contributors’ activities vary across different time periods and explores their distinct engagement patterns within the community. Our findings reveal that only 9.8% of contributors handle the majority of test-related commits, exceeding the traditional 80/20 Pareto principle. Additionally, hierarchical clustering of these contributors over three years identified three activity levels: Highly-Active, Moderately-Active, and Lowly-Active. Each cluster exhibits unique patterns of testing focus and engagement across different time periods. These insights emphasize the critical role of a small core group in managing the project’s testing workload and underscore the need for strategies to broaden participation in testing activities.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Sari A., Tosun A. and Alptekin G. (2025). Identifying Testing Behaviour in Open Source Projects: A Case Analysis for Apache Spark. In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE; ISBN 978-989-758-742-9, SciTePress, pages 268-279. DOI: 10.5220/0013441300003928

in Bibtex Style

@conference{enase25,
author={Asli Sari and Ayse Tosun and Gülfem Alptekin},
title={Identifying Testing Behaviour in Open Source Projects: A Case Analysis for Apache Spark},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE},
year={2025},
pages={268-279},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013441300003928},
isbn={978-989-758-742-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE
TI - Identifying Testing Behaviour in Open Source Projects: A Case Analysis for Apache Spark
SN - 978-989-758-742-9
AU - Sari A.
AU - Tosun A.
AU - Alptekin G.
PY - 2025
SP - 268
EP - 279
DO - 10.5220/0013441300003928
PB - SciTePress