44 Years of Unix Evolution Available as Complete Version-Control Repository
By
lioeters
Front-window bakery material. Catches the eye, delivers the goods.
Summary
A comprehensive version-control repository has been created that documents 44 years of Unix operating system evolution, from its 1972 inception as a 5,000-line kernel to its 2015 state as a 26 million-line system. The repository contains 659,000 commits and 2,306 merges, synthesized from 24 historical snapshots, legacy repositories, and modern FreeBSD sources. It identifies 850 individual contributors and serves as a valuable dataset for empirical research in software engineering, information systems, and software archaeology.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledThe evolution of the Unix operating system is made available as a version-control repository, covering the period from its inception in 1972 as a five thousand line kernel, to 2015 as a widely-used 26 million line system.
The repository contains 659 thousand commits and 2306 merges.
It has been created by synthesizing with custom software 24 snapshots of systems developed at Bell Labs, Berkeley University, and the 386BSD team, two legacy repositories, and the modern repository of the open source FreeBSD system.
In total, 850 individual contributors are identified, the early ones through primary research.
The data set can be used for empirical research in software engineering, information systems, and software archaeology.
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