Analysis of the package dependency on Debian GNU/Linux

Abstract

We build the network of more than 18,000 software packages of Debian GNU/Linux operating system, for its current three releases , along with their dependence interactions. We measured the degree connectivity distribution, modularity and detect some communities. The scale-free nature of the dependency network and the results for the betweenness centrality can confirm the stability of the system to random bugs. Also the communities we have found can be used for determining the packages that could be mantained by teams rather than developers.