Analyzing the Developer’s Sentiment in Software Components: A Decade-Long Study of the Apache Project

Open-source software development relies heavily on effective collaboration among developers, with communication often reflecting emotional responses to the technical challenges encountered. The Apache HTTP Server (’httpd’) project, a widely used web server, provides a rich dataset to explore how developer sentiment may be influenced by the complexity of software components. This study aims to investigate the relationship between developer sentiment and software component complexity in the Apache’httpd’ project. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether emotional expressions, captured through sentiment analysis, correlate with the complexity of the components developers work on over a decade of project development (2015–2024). Weutilized two primary datasets: developer communication from the mailing list and commit data. Sentiment analysis was conducted using Sentistrength-SE to classify messages as positive or negative. Software component complexity was measured using static code analysis tools, and a network model of file dependencies was created to examine the architectural structure. Statistical tests, including ANOVA and Tukey HSD, were applied to assess the relationship between sentiment, complexity, and developer contributions. The results indicate that complexity is not necessarily associated with developers’ sentiments. However, the most crucial component was significantly affected by sentiments. Developers contributing to more complex components expressed more negative sentiments, suggesting that complexity may contribute to emotional strain. These findings offer insights into managing developer well-being and improving project management strategies in open-source development environments by addressing both technical and emotional factors.