[BuildStream] Exploratory effort related with metrics in BuildStream: are we growing?

[Agustín Benito Bethencourt <agustin benito codethink co uk>]

Hi,

Growing a culture where opinions, impressions, expectations and ultimately decisions are supported by data is 
not just positive in general but also a sign of maturity for Open Source projects, in my opinion. So when 
BuildStream is getting into the third year of life I decided to put some effort into metrics hoping that some 
of you agree on how useful it could be for the project and push for investing on this area of work in the 
future. As mentioned in the report, I recommend that we rely in providers specialized in this matter in the 
future.

This effort is driven by a simple question. The analysis pop up some interesting trends that bring additional 
questions. It was not my intention in general to provide answers to those but point at them. I hope we can 
answer some of them together in this list and that additional questions arise, that will require further 
analysis. 

I have added codes to the questions, analysis sections, conclusions and recommendations so we can refer to 
them in this list. It would make easier to follow the discussions if you refer to them.

I look forward to your comments.

Links to the report and additional information:
* Link to the full report (.pdf) including tables and graphs (download): 
https://gitlab.com/BuildStream/nosoftware/communication/raw/master/statistics-reports/buildstream_statistics_report_nov_2018/BuildStream_exploratory_data_analysis_report_nov_2018_full.pdf?inline=false
 
* Link to the report document only (.pdf), that include links to the the tables and graphs:   
https://gitlab.com/BuildStream/nosoftware/communication/blob/master/statistics-reports/buildstream_statistics_report_nov_2018/BuildStream_exploratory_data_analysis_report_nov_2018_document_only.pdf
* Link to the report folder: 
https://gitlab.com/BuildStream/nosoftware/communication/tree/master/statistics-reports/buildstream_statistics_report_nov_2018
* Link to the scripts used to extract the data from git: 
https://gitlab.com/BuildStream/nosoftware/communication/tree/master/statistics-tools

I will write a blog post about this effort in a few days, so I can include references to the discussion 
derived from it.

I would like to thank Valentin for helping me in the data extraction and to those of you who have provided 
input.

Best Regards

-- 
Agustín Benito Bethencourt
Principal Consultant
Codethink Ltd
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