Case Ethereum: How Open-Source Software on GitHub Succeed

Abstract

GitHub, a service for software development, hosts millions of projects. However, some repositories are lacking, while others excel. Our study aims to uncover the characteristics that contribute to a project’s success. Using GitHub Archive, a project that records the public GitHub timeline and archives it, our study tests four different hypotheses against the product quality of the open-source software on GitHub and available on GitHub Archive. Our study primarily focuses on Ethereum, a decentralized blockchain. Product quality and success was measured through two different features. The first is the number of forks, as developers tend to fork repositories when they are interested. The second is through the number of watches. By watching a repository, you are notified by changes in the repository—a direct measure of popularity. Using econometric modeling to confirm our results, our hypotheses test the different roles core developers and peripheral developers play when contributing to the success of a project, the importance of developer related collaboration, the relationship between project structure and popularity, and the importance of a project among other open-source software. Testing these four hypotheses, and measuring the statistical significance of each variable, will determine the characteristics that contribute to the success of a project on GitHub.