From a1915783730862e5cd8b1ac6c990dc5a309123d5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 16:53:39 +0000 Subject: Initial revision svn path=/trunk/; revision=2610 --- history.html | 91 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 91 insertions(+) create mode 100644 history.html diff --git a/history.html b/history.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..7cf4179d --- /dev/null +++ b/history.html @@ -0,0 +1,91 @@ + + + + + + +Trends in the fetchmail project's growth + + + +

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$Date: 1999/09/26 16:53:39 $ +

Trends in the fetchmail project's growth

+ +The scattergram below was made with Gnuplot 3.7 from data culled directly +out of the project NEWS file using two custom shellscripts, timeseries and growthplot.

+ +

+ +The graph shows the population growth of the fetchmail project. The +horizontal scale is days since baseline, which is when I started +collecting statistics in October 1996 at version 1.9.0. Left vertical +scale is number of participants. There is one data point for each +release; therefore, the changes in density of marks indicate release +frequency.

+ +The peak in the earliest part of the graph (before the note "Bad +addresses dropped") seems to be an artifact; I was not regularly +dropping addresses that became invalid at the time. Turnover on the +list seems to be about 5% per month (but that's my estimate, I don't +have numbers on this).

+ +The blue scatter of squares is total +participants. The green scatter of crosses is +the count of people on fetchmail-friends after I split the list. The +violet scatter of x marks is the population +of fetchmail-announce after the split.

+ +The brown scatter of asterisks tracks project +size in lines of code (right vertical axis). The scale relationship +between this scatter and the other three is arbitrary.

+ +This graph is quite revealing. Several trends stand out:

+ +

+Over time, the project population displays rather consistent linear growth.
+ +
+The key event in the project's lifetime was release 4.3.0 in October +1997, when I declared the code to be out of development and in +maintainance mode, and split the fetchmail list.
+ +
+The run-up to 4.3.0 saw the most intensive spate of releases in the +project's history (the gap in that run happened when I took a two-week +vacation). It was followed by a significant slowdown.
+ +
+After 4.3.0, the developer population remained fairly stable around +an average of about 250 participants.
+ +
+Essentially all population growth after 4.3.0 happened on the announce list, +among people using fetchmail but not active co-developers.
+ +
+The growth trend in code size looks sublinear, perhaps logarithmic. +

+ +The linear growth trend in population is particularly interesting; a +priori we might expect geometric or logistic growth, given that the +project spreads by word of mouth. I have not yet been able to +plausibly imagine a growth model that would produce these numbers.

+ +

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$Date: 1999/09/26 16:53:39 $ +

+ +

Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>

+ + + -- cgit v1.2.3