What is in github?

Daniel M Germandmg@uvic.ca

Researcher states:

“40% of pull requests are not merged”

● Based on simply querying ghtorrent data● But it ignores what really happens● Many pull requests are merged without being marked as merged in github

● Ghtorrent data has many potential threats to validity

What is github used for?

"I store my presentations in github. I don't need USB stick anymore!"

Are there potential threats to validity for studies that assume github is about software engineering

only?

Methodology

● Reuse:– Surveys

– Data analysis for other papers

● Mixed methods:– Quantitative, and

– Qualitative

Uses:

Most projects are inactive

Social?

67% of projects a personal repos

95% have 3 or less committers

Self contained?

“Any serious project would have to have someseparate infrastructure - mailing lists, forums, ircchannels and their archives, build farms, etc. [...]Thus while GitHub and all other project hosts areused for collaboration, they are not and can not

be a complete solution.”

But.. what about the users?

Switch to http://osrc.dfm.io/dmgerman

Is it still worth exploring github?

Definitely!