Print Email Facebook Twitter Structure and Evolution of Package Dependency Networks Title Structure and Evolution of Package Dependency Networks Author Kikas, Riivo (University of Tartu) Gousios, G. (TU Delft Software Engineering) Dumas, Marlon (University of Tartu) Pfahl, Dietmar (University of Tartu) Contributor Bilof, R. (editor) Date 2017-05 Abstract Software developers often include available open-source software packages into their projects to minimize redundant effort. However, adding a package to a project can also introduce risks, which can propagate through multiple levels of dependencies. Currently, not much is known about the structure of open-source package ecosystems of popular programming languages and the extent to which transitive bug propagation is possible. This paper analyzes the dependency network structure and evolution of the JavaScript, Ruby, and Rust ecosystems. The reported results reveal significant differences across language ecosystems. The results indicate that the number of transitive dependencies for JavaScript has grown 60% over the last year, suggesting that developers should look more carefully into their dependencies to understand what exactly is included. The study also reveals that vulnerability to a removal of the most popular package is increasing, yet most other packages have a decreasing impact on vulnerability. The findings of this study can inform the development of dependency management tools. Subject EcosystemsComputer languagesComputer bugsToolsLibrariesSoftware packages To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d4f3b461-a0c8-4b23-8041-3f2f55dd773e DOI https://doi.org/10.1109/MSR.2017.55 Publisher IEEE, Piscataway ISBN 978-1-5386-1545-4 Source Proceedings - 2017 IEEE/ACM 14th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories, MSR 2017 Event MSR 2017, 2017-05-20 → 2017-05-21, Buenos Aires, Argentina Bibliographical note Accepted author manuscript Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type conference paper Rights © 2017 Riivo Kikas, G. Gousios, Marlon Dumas, Dietmar Pfahl Files PDF ecosystems_evolution.pdf 482.26 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:d4f3b461-a0c8-4b23-8041-3f2f55dd773e/datastream/OBJ/view