Developer reactions to protestware in open source software: the cases of color.js and es5.ext
This program is tentative and subject to change.
There is growing concern about maintainers self-sabotaging their work in order to take political or economic stances, a practice referred to as “protestware”. Our objective is to understand the discourse around discussions on such an attack, how it is received by the community, and whether developers respond to the attack in a timely manner. We study two notable protestware cases i.e., colors.js and es5-ext. Results indicate that protestware discussions are spread more quickly on the GitHub platform, while security vulnerabilities are faster on social media. By establishing a taxonomy of protestware discussions, we identify posts that express stances and provide technical mitigation instructions. We applied a thematic analysis to 684 protestware related posts to identify five major themes during the discussions: i. disseminate and response, ii. stance, iii. reputation, iv. communicative styles, v. rights and ethics. This work sheds light on the nuanced landscape of protestware discussions, offering insights for both researchers and developers into maintaining a healthy balance between the political or social actions of developers and the collective well-being of the open-source community.
This program is tentative and subject to change.
Thu 16 AprDisplayed time zone: Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil change
11:00 - 12:30 | Human and Social Aspects 6Research Track / Journal-first Papers at Oceania V Chair(s): Silvia Abrahão Universitat Politècnica de València | ||
11:00 15mTalk | Developer reactions to protestware in open source software: the cases of color.js and es5.ext Journal-first Papers Youmei Fan Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Dong Wang Tianjin University, Supatsara Wattanakriengkrai Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Hathaichanok Damrongsiri Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Christoph Treude Singapore Management University, Hideaki Hata Shinshu University, Raula Gaikovina Kula The University of Osaka Link to publication DOI Pre-print | ||
11:15 15mTalk | Addressing OSS Community Managers’ Challenges in Contributor Retention Journal-first Papers Zixuan Feng Oregon State University, USA, Katie Kimura Oregon State University, Bianca Trinkenreich Colorado State University, Igor Steinmacher RESHAPE LAB, Northern Arizona University, USA, Marco Gerosa Northern Arizona University, Anita Sarma Oregon State University Pre-print | ||
11:30 15mTalk | The whos, whats, and whys of issues related to personal data and data protection in open-source projects on GitHub Journal-first Papers Anne Hennig Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Lukas Schulte University of Passau, Steffen Herbold University of Passau, Oksana Kulyk IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Peter Mayer University of Southern Denmark Link to publication DOI | ||
11:45 15mTalk | “Write in English, Nobody Understands Your Language Here”: A Study of Non-English Trends in Open-Source Repositories Research Track Masudul Hasan Masud Bhuiyan CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Germany, Manish Kumar Bala Kumar CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Cristian-Alexandru Staicu TU Darmstadt | ||
12:00 15mTalk | How Does Core Contributor Disengagement Impact Open Source Project Activity? A Quasi-Experiment Research Track Yunqi Chen Zhejiang University, Klaas-Jan Stol Lero; University College Cork; SINTEF Digital , Fabio Marcos De Abreu Santos Colorado State University, USA, Daniel M. German University of Victoria, Bianca Trinkenreich Colorado State University | ||
12:15 15mTalk | An empirical Analysis of Community and Coding Patterns in OSS4SG vs. Conventional OSS Research Track Mohamed Ouf Queen’s University, Shayan Noei Queen's University, Zeph Van Iterson Queen's University, Mariam Guizani Queen's University, Canada, Ying Zou Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario | ||