arXiv subjects

Shane K. Panter

Publications and source records attributed to Shane K. Panter.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

MALTA: Maintenance-Aware Technical Lag, Estimation to Address Software Abandonment

Context: Open-source ecosystems rely on sustained package maintenance. When maintenance slows or stops, Technical Lag (TL), the gap between installed and latest dependency versions accumulates, creating security and sustainability risks. However, some existing TL metrics, such as Version Lag, struggle to distinguish between actively maintained and abandoned packages, leading to a systematic underestimation of risk. Objective: We investigate the relationship between Version Lag and software abandonment by (i) identifying which repository-level signals reliably distinguish sustained maintenance from long-term decline, (ii) quantifying how Version Lag magnitude and persistence differ across maintenance states, and (iii) evaluating how maintenance-aware metrics change the identification of high-risk dependencies. Method: We introduce Maintenance-Aware Lag and Technical Abandonment (MALTA), a scoring framework comprising three metrics: Development Activity Score (DAS), Maintainer Responsiveness Score (MRS), and Repository Metadata Viability Score (RMVS). We evaluate MALTA on a dataset of 11,047 Debian packages linked to upstream GitHub repositories, encompassing 1.7 million commits and 4.2 million pull requests. Results: MALTA achieves AUC = 0.783 for classifying active versus declining maintenance. Most significantly, 62.2% of packages classified as "Low Risk" by Version Lag alone are reclassified as "High Risk" when MALTA signals are incorporated. These discordant packages average 2019 days since their last commit, with 9.8% having archived repositories. Conclusions: Version Lag metrics systematically miss abandoned packages, a blind spot affecting the majority of dependencies in distribution ecosystems. MALTA identifies a substantial discordant population invisible to Version Lag by distinguishing resolvable lag from terminal lag caused by upstream abandonment.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2026

Technical Lag as Latent Technical Debt: A Rapid Review

Context: Technical lag accumulates when software systems fail to keep pace with technological advancements, leading to a deterioration in software quality. Objective: This paper aims to consolidate existing research on technical lag, clarify definitions, explore its detection and quantification methods, examine underlying causes and consequences, review current management practices, and lay out a vision as an indicator of passively accumulated technical debt. Method: We conducted a Rapid Review with snowballing to select the appropriate peer-reviewed studies. We leveraged the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and Springer as our primary source databases. Results: Technical lag accumulates passively, often unnoticed due to inadequate detection metrics and tools. It negatively impacts software quality through outdated dependencies, obsolete APIs, unsupported platforms, and aging infrastructure. Strategies to manage technical lag primarily involve automated dependency updates, continuous integration processes, and regular auditing. Conclusions: Enhancing and extending the current standardized metrics, detection methods, and empirical studies to use technical lag as an indication of accumulated latent debt can greatly improve the process of maintaining large codebases that are heavily dependent on external packages. We have identified the research gaps and outlined a future vision for researchers and practitioners to explore.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2025

PVAC: Package Version Activity Categorizer, Leveraging Semantic Versioning in a Heterogeneous System

Context: Modern open-source software ecosystems, such as those managed by GNU/Linux distributions, are composed of numerous packages developed independently by diverse communities. These ecosystems employ package management tools to facilitate software installation and dependency resolution. However, these tools lack robust mechanisms for systematically evaluating the development activity and versioning dynamics within their heterogeneous software environments. Objective: This research aims to introduce a systematic method and a prototype tool for assessing version activity within heterogeneous package manager ecosystems, enabling quantitative analysis of software package updates. Method: We developed a Package Version Activity Categorizer (PVAC) that consists of three components. The Version Categorizer (VC), which categorizes diverse semantic version numbers, a Version Number Delta (VND) component, which calculates a numeric score representing the aggregated semantic version changes across packages at the ecosystem level, and finally, an Activity Categorizer (AC) that categorizes the activity of individual packages within that ecosystem. PVAC utilizes tailored regular expressions to parse semantic versioning details (epoch, major, minor, and patch versions) from diverse package version strings, enabling consistent categorization and quantitative scoring of version changes. Results: PVAC was empirically evaluated using a dataset of 22,535 packages drawn from recent releases of Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux distributions. Our findings demonstrate PVAC's effectiveness for accurately categorizing versioning schemes and quantitatively measuring version activity across releases. We provide empirical evidence confirming that semantic versioning, including adapted variations, is predominantly employed across these ecosystems.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2024

Rusty Linux: Advances in Rust for Linux Kernel Development

Context: The integration of Rust into kernel development is a transformative endeavor aimed at enhancing system security and reliability by leveraging Rust's strong memory safety guarantees. Objective: We aim to find the current advances in using Rust in Kernel development to reduce the number of memory safety vulnerabilities in one of the most critical pieces of software that underpins all modern applications. Method: By analyzing a broad spectrum of studies, we identify the advantages Rust offers, highlight the challenges faced, and emphasize the need for community consensus on Rust's adoption. Results: Our findings suggest that while the initial implementations of Rust in the kernel show promising results in terms of safety and stability, significant challenges remain. These challenges include achieving seamless interoperability with existing kernel components, maintaining performance, and ensuring adequate support and tooling for developers. Conclusions: This study underscores the need for continued research and practical implementation efforts to fully realize the benefits of Rust. By addressing these challenges, the integration of Rust could mark a significant step forward in the evolution of operating system development towards safer and more reliable systems

cs.SE↗