# Analyzing Key Features of Open Source Software Survivability with Random Forest
## 3 Analyzing the Relationship Between OSS Survivability and Features
### Experimental Setup
#### 3.1.2 Features for OSS Survivability Analysis  
To predict and analyze OSS survivability, a variety of features were selected. OSS survivability is influenced by diverse human and technical factors, such as user retention, irreplaceability, contributor and user counts, and code quality. This reflects the fact that OSS is not merely a technical product but an ecosystem that relies on continuous interest and participation from users and contributors. Therefore, analyzing OSS survivability requires consideration of various aspects, including code quality, community activity, and user interest [14; 16]. In this study, both external factors like project popularity and internal factors such as contributors and project complexity were analyzed to understand their relationship with OSS survivability. As such, features such as stars, watchers, and contributor count, which indicate project popularity and activity, were selected. In addition, inspired by studies like [PERSON] et al., LoC (Line of Code) and cyclomatic complexity awerere included to examine how complexity impacts survivability. The selected features are summarized in Table 1. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{142.3 pt} p{142.3 pt}} \hline \hline
**Feature** & **Description** \\ \hline Star & Level of user interest in the project \\ Watch & Number of users interested in project updates \\ Contributor & Number of developers contributing to the project \\ Fork & Number of users replicating the project for further development \\ LoC & Size of the project \\ Cyclomatic Complexity & Complexity of the project code \\ Age & Time since the project was created \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Features selected for analysis. Stars are one of the most common indicators of a repository's popularity. They show how much attention a project receives and how well known it is among users. [PERSON] et al. analyzed how the number of stars impacts project success and popularity, finding that projects with more stars tend to have higher community participation and maintenance activity [20; 21]. Similarly, [PERSON] et al. reported that the number of unresolved issues affects project popularity [14]. This suggests that increased interest in a project leads to higher participation from new contributors and users. Therefore, the number of stars is selected as a feature, as it reflects sustained community interest and contributions, which enhance the project's long-term survivability. Watch represents the number of users who subscribe to notifications about project updates, indicating sustained user interest in changes to the project. [PERSON] et al. demonstrated how the number of watchers contributes to project maintenance activity. Projects with more watchers are more likely to have active maintenance, as watchers tend to be highly responsive to significant changes such as bug fixes or feature updates. Thus, the number of watchers is chosen as a key feature for analyzing OSS survivability. Contributors refer to the number of developers actively contributing code or documentation to a project. [PERSON] et al. found that the contributor count plays a crucial role in project growth and maintenance [15]. Projects with a larger number of contributors tend to improve and stabilize more quickly. Studies by [PERSON] et al. and [PERSON] et al. have also confirmed that a higher contributor count is associated with increased survivability, as it implies faster issue resolution and abundant resources for developing new features [14; 16]. Consequently, the contributor count is selected as a feature directly linked to OSS maintenance capacity. Fork refers to instances where users replicate a project to their own GitHub repositories to further develop it or propose modifications separate from the original. The number of forks reflects how much the project influences developers, both contributors and noncontributors. [PERSON] et al. concluded that projects with higher fork counts exhibit greater potential for maintenance and contributions.