[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-84569-en":3,"doc-seo-84569-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},84569,8796095360427,"Lucas Martin","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_994ba38a5ba835b3df7d355c54d3ed8d",8,"Research & Report","Social Popularity of GitHub Projects: A Lifeline or a Liability","Social coding platforms such as GitHub host millions of repositories, yet many experience high mortality and short active development lifespans. Human capital is widely viewed as a key lifeline, but social attention—often treated as beneficial—may also become a liability. The study examines how structural accessibility (e.g., code readability and documentation) can interact with massive visibility to accelerate project inactivity. An AFT survival analysis of 73,000+ repositories finds human capital most critical for survival; excessive social attention increases inactivity risk, while contributor labor can offset it under social popularity.","Social Popularity of GitHub Projects: A Lifeline or a Liability?  \nMohit Kaushik, Kuljit Kaur Chahal  \nDepartment of Computer Science, Guru Nanak Dev University,, Amritsar, 143005, Punjab, India  \nAbstract  \nSocial coding platforms such as GitHub host millions of repositories, yet many suffer from high mortality rates. Despite this, several survival factors remain poorly understood. Human capital is widely recognized as essential. Social attention while often assumed to be a lifeline, can become a liability. Structural features that improve onboarding, such as code readability and documentation, may also accelerate the cessation of active development when combined with massive visibility. To examine these dynamics, we analyzed more than 73,000 GitHub repositories using an Accelerated Failure Time (AFT) survival framework, which accounts for the time-varying nature of predictors. Our study identifies human capital as the most critical determinant of project survival. In contrast, excessive social attention emerges as a liability, and when coupled with accessibility features, it amplifies the risk of project inactivity. Importantly, when the number of contributors interacts with social popularity, the protective effect of labor becomes visible, highlighting the need for governance strategies that balance visibility with labor capacity to ensure the long-term resilience of open-source projects.  \nKeywords: Social Popularity, OSS Survival, OSS Project Lifespan, Accelerated Failure Time Framework  \n1. Introduction  \nIn the modern era, open-source software (OSS) has become the backbone of digital infrastructure, as the majority of organizations utilize it to some extent [1] . Major social coding platforms like GitHub host millions of repositories; although the majority are experimental or trivial [2], a significant percentage still suffers from severe abandonment and a short lifespan [3] . To understand this high mortality rate, studies continually highlight human capital as the primary lifeline for a project [4, 5, 6] . Historically, project survival has relied almost entirely on the sustained effort of volunteer contributions, and research has demonstrated that an active core team protects a project from stagnation [7] . With the advent of social coding platforms, community attention also emerges as a crucial survival factor [8, 6] .  \nNaturally, a baseline level of community attention is re-  \ndisproportionate influx of casual contributors that accompanies high visibility can be overwhelming [16] . Research confirms that casual contributors bring tangible net benefits to a project, such as useful bug fixes [13] . However, the sheer volume of general user interactions, such as demanding support or proposing out-of-scope features, can create an “induced demand\" on maintainers [17] . Such activities inevitably lead to information overload, which drains limited maintainer resources and accelerates burnout [18] .  \nThis socio-technical tension suggests that project survival should be studied not merely as a function of team size, but as a function of structural accessibility. We define structural accessibility as the degree to which a project’s codebase and documentation lower the cognitive barrier to entry for newcomers. Conventionally, software engineering principles dictate that clean, readable code and external documentation are beneficial for onboarding newcomers [19, 20] . Yet, in highly  \narXiv :2607 .00435v2 [ cs . SE] 6 Jul 2026  \nquired for a project to survive by attracting new contributors [9, 10] . However, the architecture of modern social coding has introduced a new and challenging volunteer model: hypervisibility [11] . While “mega-projects\" such as Linux or Mozilla Firefox survive at a massive scale by adopting commercial-style governance and employing corporate-backed, full-time developers [7, 12], most volunteer-driven projects lack this institutional infrastructure. For these smaller or community-led initiatives, h","cbCaipooqpa3sU5p","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaipooqpa3sU5p","pdf",1417235,1,19,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n## Human capital as a lifeline\n## Social attention as liability\n## Structural accessibility and paradox of accessibility\n# Research approach","[{\"question\":\"这项研究关注 GitHub 项目寿命的哪些关键影响因素？\",\"answer\":\"研究同时考察人力资本、社交关注（如社交流量/可见度）以及结构可达性（代码可读性与外部文档）如何共同影响项目的活跃开发持续时间。\"},{\"question\":\"为什么作者认为“社交关注”可能从利好变成负担？\",\"answer\":\"可见度提高会带来外部需求的涌入，核心维护者的认知带宽有限，导致信息过载与精力耗尽，从而加速项目进入不活跃状态。\"},{\"question\":\"AFT 生存分析在这项研究中的作用是什么？\",\"answer\":\"作者使用 Accelerated Failure Time（AFT）框架来进行生存分析，以处理开放源代码寿命数据中的右删失与时间累积偏差，并识别各变量对项目存活与失活的统计影响。\"}]",1784196863,48,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"social-popularity-of-github-projects-a-lifeline-or-a-liability","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/social-popularity-of-github-projects-a-lifeline-or-a-liability/84569/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-17","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"这项研究关注 GitHub 项目寿命的哪些关键影响因素？","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"研究同时考察人力资本、社交关注（如社交流量/可见度）以及结构可达性（代码可读性与外部文档）如何共同影响项目的活跃开发持续时间。","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"为什么作者认为“社交关注”可能从利好变成负担？",{"text":80,"@type":76},"可见度提高会带来外部需求的涌入，核心维护者的认知带宽有限，导致信息过载与精力耗尽，从而加速项目进入不活跃状态。",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"AFT 生存分析在这项研究中的作用是什么？",{"text":84,"@type":76},"作者使用 Accelerated Failure Time（AFT）框架来进行生存分析，以处理开放源代码寿命数据中的右删失与时间累积偏差，并识别各变量对项目存活与失活的统计影响。","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":136,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":137},"General","general"]