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Will my patch make it? and how fast?: case study on the Linux kernel

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Daniel M. GermanAuthors Info & Claims

MSR '13: Proceedings of the 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories

Pages 101 - 110

Published: 18 May 2013 Publication History

Abstract

The Linux kernel follows an extremely distributed reviewing and integration process supported by 130 developer mailing lists and a hierarchy of dozens of Git repositories for version control. Since not every patch can make it and of those that do, some patches require a lot more reviewing and integra- tion effort than others, developers, reviewers and integrators need support for estimating which patches are worthwhile to spend effort on and which ones do not stand a chance. This paper cross- links and analyzes eight years of patch reviews from the kernel mailing lists and committed patches from the Git repository to understand which patches are accepted and how long it takes those patches to get to the end user. We found that 33% of the patches makes it into a Linux release, and that most of them need 3 to 6 months for this. Furthermore, that patches developed by more experienced developers are more easily accepted and faster reviewed and integrated. Additionally, reviewing time is impacted by submission time, the number of affected subsystems by the patch and the number of requested reviewers.

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Cited By

Ferreira ICheng JAdams B(2021)The "Shut the f**k up" Phenomenon: Characterizing Incivility in Open Source Code Review DiscussionsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34794975:CSCW2(1-35)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479497
Coelho FTsantalis NMassoni TAlves ELanubile F(2021)An Empirical Study on Refactoring-Inducing Pull RequestsProceedings of the 15th ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)10.1145/3475716.3475785(1-12)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2021
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Mortara JCollet PMousavi MSchobbens P(2021)Capturing the diversity of analyses on the Linux kernel variabilityProceedings of the 25th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume A10.1145/3461001.3471151(160-171)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2021
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Index Terms

Will my patch make it? and how fast?: case study on the Linux kernel
1. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Data mining
2. Software and its engineering

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Information

Published In

cover image Guide Proceedings

MSR '13: Proceedings of the 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories

May 2013

438 pages

ISBN:9781467329361

General Chair:
Thomas Zimmermann,
Program Chairs:
Massimiliano Di Penta,
Sunghun Kim

Publisher

IEEE Press

Publication History

Published: 18 May 2013

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Ferreira ICheng JAdams B(2021)The "Shut the f**k up" Phenomenon: Characterizing Incivility in Open Source Code Review DiscussionsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34794975:CSCW2(1-35)Online publication date: 18-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3479497
Coelho FTsantalis NMassoni TAlves ELanubile F(2021)An Empirical Study on Refactoring-Inducing Pull RequestsProceedings of the 15th ACM / IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)10.1145/3475716.3475785(1-12)Online publication date: 11-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3475716.3475785
Mortara JCollet PMousavi MSchobbens P(2021)Capturing the diversity of analyses on the Linux kernel variabilityProceedings of the 25th ACM International Systems and Software Product Line Conference - Volume A10.1145/3461001.3471151(160-171)Online publication date: 6-Sep-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3461001.3471151
Franz PBerger TFayaz INadi SGroshev EEldh SFalessi D(2021)ConfigFixProceedings of the 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice10.1109/ICSE-SEIP52600.2021.00018(91-100)Online publication date: 25-May-2021
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