Logo
ScienceStack
Table of Contents
Fetching ...
Sign In

Do Good, Stay Longer? Temporal Patterns and Predictors of Newcomer-to-Core Transitions in Conventional OSS and OSS4SG

Mohamed Ouf, Amr Mohamed, Mariam Guizani

TL;DR

This study compares newcomer-to-core transitions in OSS4SG and conventional OSS across 375 projects (190 OSS4SG, 185 OSS) with 92,721 contributors and 3.5 million commits. Using a multi-method approach—structural metrics, survival analysis, early-predictive modeling from the first $90$ days, milestone-pathway analysis, and DTW-based temporal-pattern clustering—the authors show that mission-driven OSS4SG projects foster environments more conducive to core achievement, with higher retention and faster core attainment (hazard ratio $=1.196$). Early broad exploration universally predicts future core contributors, but OSS4SG offers multiple viable pathways and higher direct commit-access rates, while conventional OSS tends to concentrate around a single milestone sequence. The study further reveals three temporal contribution patterns, with Late Spike (low initial activity increasing over time) yielding the fastest time-to-core ($\approx$ $21$ weeks) across both categories, and two fast patterns being present in OSS4SG but only one in conventional OSS. These findings yield practical guidance for newcomers and maintainers—align mission, take time to explore, and design onboarding that supports broad architectural understanding and trust-based access—to help mitigate the newcomer-to-core bottleneck and sustain core contributor communities.

Abstract

Open Source Software (OSS) sustainability relies on newcomers transitioning to core contributors, but this pipeline is broken, with most newcomers becoming inactive after initial contributions. Open Source Software for Social Good (OSS4SG) projects, which prioritize societal impact as their primary mission, may be associated with different newcomer-to-core transition outcomes than conventional OSS projects. We compared 375 projects (190 OSS4SG, 185 OSS), analyzing 92,721 contributors and 3.5 million commits. OSS4SG projects retain contributors at 2.2X higher rates and contributors have 19.6% higher probability of achieving core status. Early broad project exploration predicts core achievement (22.2% importance); conventional OSS concentrates on one dominant pathway (61.62% of transitions) while OSS4SG provides multiple pathways. Contrary to intuition, contributors who invest time learning the project before intensifying their contributions (Late Spike pattern) achieve core status 2.4-2.9X faster (21 weeks) than those who contribute intensively from day one (Early Spike pattern, 51-60 weeks). OSS4SG supports two effective temporal patterns while only Late Spike achieves fastest time-to-core in conventional OSS. Our findings suggest that finding a project aligned with personal values and taking time to understand the codebase before major contributions are key strategies for achieving core status. Our findings show that project mission is associated with measurably different environments for newcomer-to-core transitions and provide evidence-based guidance for newcomers and maintainers.

Do Good, Stay Longer? Temporal Patterns and Predictors of Newcomer-to-Core Transitions in Conventional OSS and OSS4SG

TL;DR

This study compares newcomer-to-core transitions in OSS4SG and conventional OSS across 375 projects (190 OSS4SG, 185 OSS) with 92,721 contributors and 3.5 million commits. Using a multi-method approach—structural metrics, survival analysis, early-predictive modeling from the first days, milestone-pathway analysis, and DTW-based temporal-pattern clustering—the authors show that mission-driven OSS4SG projects foster environments more conducive to core achievement, with higher retention and faster core attainment (hazard ratio ). Early broad exploration universally predicts future core contributors, but OSS4SG offers multiple viable pathways and higher direct commit-access rates, while conventional OSS tends to concentrate around a single milestone sequence. The study further reveals three temporal contribution patterns, with Late Spike (low initial activity increasing over time) yielding the fastest time-to-core ( weeks) across both categories, and two fast patterns being present in OSS4SG but only one in conventional OSS. These findings yield practical guidance for newcomers and maintainers—align mission, take time to explore, and design onboarding that supports broad architectural understanding and trust-based access—to help mitigate the newcomer-to-core bottleneck and sustain core contributor communities.

Abstract

Open Source Software (OSS) sustainability relies on newcomers transitioning to core contributors, but this pipeline is broken, with most newcomers becoming inactive after initial contributions. Open Source Software for Social Good (OSS4SG) projects, which prioritize societal impact as their primary mission, may be associated with different newcomer-to-core transition outcomes than conventional OSS projects. We compared 375 projects (190 OSS4SG, 185 OSS), analyzing 92,721 contributors and 3.5 million commits. OSS4SG projects retain contributors at 2.2X higher rates and contributors have 19.6% higher probability of achieving core status. Early broad project exploration predicts core achievement (22.2% importance); conventional OSS concentrates on one dominant pathway (61.62% of transitions) while OSS4SG provides multiple pathways. Contrary to intuition, contributors who invest time learning the project before intensifying their contributions (Late Spike pattern) achieve core status 2.4-2.9X faster (21 weeks) than those who contribute intensively from day one (Early Spike pattern, 51-60 weeks). OSS4SG supports two effective temporal patterns while only Late Spike achieves fastest time-to-core in conventional OSS. Our findings suggest that finding a project aligned with personal values and taking time to understand the codebase before major contributions are key strategies for achieving core status. Our findings show that project mission is associated with measurably different environments for newcomer-to-core transitions and provide evidence-based guidance for newcomers and maintainers.
Paper Structure (35 sections, 3 equations, 5 figures, 5 tables)

This paper contains 35 sections, 3 equations, 5 figures, 5 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Dataset Sources
  4. Contributor Identity Resolution.
  5. RQ1: Does the social good mission of OSS4SG projects correlate with different structural characteristics and newcomer core transition outcomes compared to conventional OSS projects?
  6. Approach
  7. Data Preparation.
  8. Structural Metrics.
  9. Transition Rate Analysis.
  10. Survival Analysis.
  11. Corporate Involvement Analysis.
  12. Statistical Testing.
  13. Results
  14. RQ2: What characteristics distinguish future core contributors, and what are the common pathways to achieving core status in each project category?
  15. Approach
  16. ...and 20 more sections

Figures (5)

  • Figure 1: Distribution comparison of structural metrics and transition rates between conventional OSS and OSS4SG.
  • Figure 2: Kaplan-Meier survival curves showing OSS4SG contributors have higher probability of achieving core status.
  • Figure 3: Comparison of most common pathways between project categories.
  • Figure 4: Three temporal patterns of contribution intensity identified via DTW clustering (cluster centroids, k=3).
  • Figure 5: Temporal pattern effectiveness ranked by time-to-core outcomes. Colors indicate Scott-Knott ranking groups, with Rank 1 (red) representing fastest time-to-core. Median weeks shown with pattern labels (R1-R4).