As more projects are created, open-source software continues to become a critical part of the software industry. The popular web-based Git and internet hosting service GitHub releases its 2017 'Open Source Survey' to ensure that the community understands its landscape.
The open set of data is designed to help open-source members, researchers and data enthusiasts understand the needs of the community.
GitHub collaborated with researchers, the industry and the open-source community to design its 2017 Open Source Survey. It surveyed over 5,500 members of its community, from over 3,800 projects on github.com. It also spoke to 500 coders working on projects from outside the GitHub ecosystem.
With more than 50 questions, the survey covers a range of topics, from documentation to the open-source industry as a whole.
While some of the data highlights how valuable certain metrics are to developers, others are showing how people have overlooked their importance.
The first is documentation. According to GitHub, documentation helps new GitHub users contribute to projects, use projects, and understand the overall conduct and standards of the community. "Incomplete or confusing documentation" is the number one problem encountered in open source.
Licenses are by far the most important type of documentation to both users and contributors: 64 percent said that an open source license is very important in deciding whether to use a project, and 67 percent said that it is very important in deciding whether to contribute.
The open-source data also reveals the impact on negative interactions. By far, the most frequently encountered bad behavior is rudeness, followed by name calling, and more serious incidents such as stalking, sexual advances, or doxxing.
"It's not possible to know from this data whether the gap is due to people who experienced such interactions leaving open source, or broad visibility of incidents," said GitHub. "Either way, negative interactions impact many more than the immediate participants, so address problematic behavior swiftly, politely, and publicly, to send a signal to potential contributors that such behavior isn’t typical or tolerated."
The next finding is the reflecting the open source audience of users.
There is a great imbalance of gender on GitHub: 95 percent of respondents are men; just 3 percent are women and 1 percent are non-binary. Women are about as likely as men to say they are very interested in making future contributions, but less likely to say they are very likely to actually do so.
The survey concluded that women are still more likely than men to encounter language or content that makes them feel unwelcome, as well as stereotyping, and unsolicited sexual advances.
"Collaboration between strangers is one of open source's most remarkable aspects: strive to build a community where everyone feels welcome to participate," according to GitHub.
Open source is widely used in professional contexts. The majority of respondents use and contribute to open source at work, and many people cite their open source work as important to getting their current job.
But there is a significant number of respondents that said their employers' official policies and IP agreements are unclear regarding what is allowed, and under what terms. "Businesses play a key role in open source by subsidizing open source work from employees, so creating and communicating clear policies can encourage more frequent, regular contributions," said GitHub.
70 percent of respondents are employed full- or part-time, and 85 percent of those contribute in some way to software development (developers, designers, or other roles in the software industry) frequently or occasionally in their main job.
And for last, the respondents said that security matters when choosing new software. most users believe that open source is more secure, on average, than proprietary software.
But when it comes to stability, users are less convinced. Fewer respondents were convinced of open source's superiority: only 36 percent said user experience tends to be better, and 30 percent said that open source software is generally more stable than proprietary options.
"Despite these tradeoffs, users still prefer open source. 72 percent say that they always seek out open source options when evaluating new tools," said GitHub.