Re: Community renewal and project obsolescence

[Gunnar Wolf <gwolf@debian.org>]

Mo Zhou dijo [Thu, Dec 28, 2023 at 02:02:18PM -0500]:
> > Thanks for the code and the figure. Indeed, the trend is confirmed by
> > fitting a linear model count ~ year to the new members list. The
> > coefficient is -1.39 member/year, which is significantly different from
> > zero (F[1,22] = 11.8, p < 0.01). Even when we take out the data from
> > year 2001, that could be interpreted as an outlier, the trend is still
> > siginificant, with a drop of 0.98 member/year (F[1,21] = 8.48, p <
> > 0.01).
> 
> I thought about to use some models for population statistics, so we can get
> the data about DD birth rate and DD retire/leave rate, as well as a
> prediction. But since the descendants of DDs are not naturally new DDs, the
> typical population models are not likely going to work well. The birth of DD
> is more likely mutation, sort of.

Five years ago, I got a paper published where we analized and made
some forecasts on the curated Web-of-Trust keyrings in Debian:

    https://jisajournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13174-018-0082-7

I did the first part of the article, but the part that better fits
what you are describing was done by my coauthor, Víctor González (who
understands about statistics way better than me).

Anyway, it does not also answer to the exact question you are
presenting --- we there studied the lifetime of keys, and left for
later analysis a way to link said keys into people, in order to map
the life trajectory of an individual in the project. But it might
still be interesting or useful for your analysis.

> Anyway, we do not need sophisticated math models to draw the conclusion that
> Debian is an aging community. And yet, we don't seem to have a good way to
> reshape the curve using Debian's funds. -- this is one of the key problems
> behind the data.

And I think this is hardly an unexpected outcome. There are many
social and technological patterns that define us as a 1990s project
that continues to liveand thrive, but not necessarily with the best /
most up-to-date tooling.