alasdairforsythe/text-english-code-fiction-nonfiction

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\section{Introduction}
\label{sec:intro}

\emph{Gender diversity}, or more often its lack thereof, among participants to
software development activities has been thoroughly studied in recent years. In
particular, the presence of, effects of, and countermeasures for \emph{gender
bias} in Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) have received a lot of attention
over the past decade~\cite{david2008fossdevs, qiu2010kdewomen,
nafus2012patches, kuechler2012genderfoss, vasilescu2014gender,
oneil2016debiansurvey, robles2016womeninfoss, terrell2017gender,
zacchiroli2021gender}. \emph{Geographic diversity} is on the other hand the
kind of diversity that stems from participants in some global activity coming
from different world regions and cultures.

Geographic diversity in FOSS has received relatively little attention in scholarly
works. In particular, while seminal survey-based and
point-in-time medium-scale studies of the geographic origins of FOSS
contributors exist~\cite{ghosh2005understanding, david2008fossdevs,
barahona2008geodiversity, takhteyev2010ossgeography, robles2014surveydataset,
wachs2021ossgeography}, large-scale longitudinal studies of the geographic
origin of FOSS contributors are still lacking. Such a quantitative
characterization would be useful to inform decisions related to global
development teams~\cite{herbsleb2007globalsweng} and hiring strategies in the
information technology (IT) market, as well as contribute factual information
to the debates on the economic impact and sociology of FOSS around the world.


\paragraph{Contributions}

With this work we contribute to close this gap by conducting \textbf{the first
longitudinal study of the geographic origin of contributors to public code
over 50 years.} Specifically, we provide a preliminary answer to the
following research question:
\begin{researchquestion}
From which world regions do authors of publicly available commits come from
and how has it changed over the past 50 years?
\label{rq:geodiversity}
\end{researchquestion}
We use as dataset the \SWH/ archive~\cite{swhipres2017} and analyze from it
2.2 billion\xspace commits archived from 160 million\xspace projects and authored by
43 million\xspace authors during the 1971--2021 time period.
We geolocate developers to
\DATAWorldRegions/ world regions, using as signals email country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) and
author (first/last) names compared with name distributions around the world, and UTC offsets
mined from commit metadata.

We find evidence of the early dominance of North America in open source
software, later joined by Europe. After that period, the geographic diversity
in public code has been constantly increasing.
We also identify relevant historical shifts
related to the end of the UNIX wars and the increase of coding literacy in
Central and South Asia, as well as of broader phenomena like colonialism and
people movement across countries (immigration/emigration).




\paragraph{Data availability.}

A replication package for this paper is available from Zenodo at
\url{https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6390355}~\cite{replication-package}.


\section{Related Work}
\label{sec:related}

Both early and recent works~\cite{ghosh2005understanding, david2008fossdevs,
robles2014surveydataset, oneil2016debiansurvey} have characterized the
geography of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) using \emph{developer surveys},
which provide high-quality answers but are limited in size (2-5\,K developers)
and can be biased by participant sampling.

In 2008 Barahona et al.~\cite{barahona2008geodiversity} conducted a seminal
large-scale (for the time) study on FOSS \emph{geography using mining software
repositories (MSR) techniques}. They analyzed the origin of 1\,M contributors
using the SourceForge user database and mailing list archives over the
1999--2005 period, using as signals information similar to ours: email domains
and UTC offsets.
The studied period (7 years) in~\cite{barahona2008geodiversity} is shorter than
what is studied in the present paper (50 years) and the data sources are
largely different; with that in mind, our results show a slightly larger quote of
European v.~North American contributions.

Another empirical work from 2010 by Takhteyev and
Hilts~\cite{takhteyev2010ossgeography} harvested self-declared geographic
locations of GitHub accounts recursively following their connections,
collecting information for $\approx$\,70\,K GitHub users. A very recent
work~\cite{wachs2021ossgeography} by Wachs et al.~has geolocated half a million
GitHub users, having contributed at least 100 commits each, and who
self-declare locations on their GitHub profiles. While the study is
point-in-time as of 2021, the authors compare their findings
against~\cite{barahona2008geodiversity, takhteyev2010ossgeography} to
characterize the evolution of FOSS geography over the time snapshots taken by
the three studies.

Compared with previous empirical works, our study is much larger scale---having
analyzed 43 million\xspace authors of 2.2 billion\xspace commits from 160 million\xspace
projects---longitudinal over 50 years of public code contributions rather than
point in time, and also more fine-grained (with year-by-year granularity over
the observed period). Methodologically, our study relies on Version Control

\section{Introduction}

\label{sec:intro}

\emph{Gender diversity}, or more often its lack thereof, among participants to

software development activities has been thoroughly studied in recent years. In

particular, the presence of, effects of, and countermeasures for \emph{gender

bias} in Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) have received a lot of attention

over the past decade~\cite{david2008fossdevs, qiu2010kdewomen,

nafus2012patches, kuechler2012genderfoss, vasilescu2014gender,

oneil2016debiansurvey, robles2016womeninfoss, terrell2017gender,

zacchiroli2021gender}. \emph{Geographic diversity} is on the other hand the

kind of diversity that stems from participants in some global activity coming

from different world regions and cultures.

Geographic diversity in FOSS has received relatively little attention in scholarly

works. In particular, while seminal survey-based and

point-in-time medium-scale studies of the geographic origins of FOSS

contributors exist~\cite{ghosh2005understanding, david2008fossdevs,

barahona2008geodiversity, takhteyev2010ossgeography, robles2014surveydataset,

wachs2021ossgeography}, large-scale longitudinal studies of the geographic

origin of FOSS contributors are still lacking. Such a quantitative

characterization would be useful to inform decisions related to global

development teams~\cite{herbsleb2007globalsweng} and hiring strategies in the

information technology (IT) market, as well as contribute factual information

to the debates on the economic impact and sociology of FOSS around the world.

\paragraph{Contributions}

With this work we contribute to close this gap by conducting \textbf{the first

longitudinal study of the geographic origin of contributors to public code

over 50 years.} Specifically, we provide a preliminary answer to the

following research question:

\begin{researchquestion}

From which world regions do authors of publicly available commits come from

and how has it changed over the past 50 years?

\label{rq:geodiversity}

\end{researchquestion}

We use as dataset the \SWH/ archive~\cite{swhipres2017} and analyze from it

2.2 billion\xspace commits archived from 160 million\xspace projects and authored by

43 million\xspace authors during the 1971--2021 time period.

We geolocate developers to

\DATAWorldRegions/ world regions, using as signals email country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) and

author (first/last) names compared with name distributions around the world, and UTC offsets

mined from commit metadata.

We find evidence of the early dominance of North America in open source

software, later joined by Europe. After that period, the geographic diversity

in public code has been constantly increasing.

We also identify relevant historical shifts

related to the end of the UNIX wars and the increase of coding literacy in

Central and South Asia, as well as of broader phenomena like colonialism and

people movement across countries (immigration/emigration).

\paragraph{Data availability.}

A replication package for this paper is available from Zenodo at

\url{https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6390355}~\cite{replication-package}.

\section{Related Work}

\label{sec:related}

Both early and recent works~\cite{ghosh2005understanding, david2008fossdevs,

robles2014surveydataset, oneil2016debiansurvey} have characterized the

geography of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) using \emph{developer surveys},

which provide high-quality answers but are limited in size (2-5\,K developers)

and can be biased by participant sampling.

In 2008 Barahona et al.~\cite{barahona2008geodiversity} conducted a seminal

large-scale (for the time) study on FOSS \emph{geography using mining software

repositories (MSR) techniques}. They analyzed the origin of 1\,M contributors

using the SourceForge user database and mailing list archives over the

1999--2005 period, using as signals information similar to ours: email domains

and UTC offsets.

The studied period (7 years) in~\cite{barahona2008geodiversity} is shorter than

what is studied in the present paper (50 years) and the data sources are

largely different; with that in mind, our results show a slightly larger quote of

European v.~North American contributions.

Another empirical work from 2010 by Takhteyev and

Hilts~\cite{takhteyev2010ossgeography} harvested self-declared geographic

locations of GitHub accounts recursively following their connections,

collecting information for $\approx$\,70\,K GitHub users. A very recent

work~\cite{wachs2021ossgeography} by Wachs et al.~has geolocated half a million

GitHub users, having contributed at least 100 commits each, and who

self-declare locations on their GitHub profiles. While the study is

point-in-time as of 2021, the authors compare their findings

against~\cite{barahona2008geodiversity, takhteyev2010ossgeography} to

characterize the evolution of FOSS geography over the time snapshots taken by

the three studies.

Compared with previous empirical works, our study is much larger scale---having

analyzed 43 million\xspace authors of 2.2 billion\xspace commits from 160 million\xspace

projects---longitudinal over 50 years of public code contributions rather than

point in time, and also more fine-grained (with year-by-year granularity over

the observed period). Methodologically, our study relies on Version Control