Abstract:

The source code and related development information of the open-source software with various versions are important data sources for software engineering researchers to investigate the software evolution. This paper analyzes the evolution law of Linux , summarizes the corresponding data sources and date-collecting methods , proposes a method to analyze the software evolution of Linux kernel , and gives the related analytical results. Moreover , a method is presented to fast measure the complexity of large-scale open-source software. It is concluded that Linux is now in a super-linear evolution , the main reason of which is that Linux should adapt to the evolution of hardware resource.

Key words: Linux, open source software, software evolution, software metrics