An Empirical Study of Factors Associated With Contributor‐Abandoned Pull Requests in Open Source Software Projects

Abstract

Pull‐based development model provides a streamlined contribution mechanism that encourages volunteer contributors to participate in Open Source Software (OSS) projects. However, a substantial number of valid Pull Requests (PRs) are abandoned by their contributors, leading to wasted effort for both contributors and maintainers, and negatively impacting the health of OSS projects. This study investigates the association between contributor‐abandoned PRs and a range of factors spanning PR, project, review process, and contributor dimensions. To achieve this objective, we conducted an empirical analysis of eight factors across four dimensions in ten mature and diverse OSS projects. Specifically, we considered PR‐related factors (PR submission day and time, authorship type, and test file inclusion), a project‐related factor (number of core maintainers), a review process‐related factor (sentiment in discussion comments), and contributor‐related factors (contributor experience and contributor gender). We performed statistical analyses to explore the associations between these factors and contributor‐abandoned PRs. Our results indicate that, at the PR level, the inclusion of test files is significantly associated with lower PR abandonment in certain studied projects. In contrast, submission day, submission time interval, and the number of authors show no statistically significant differences in abandonment. Within the review process, a higher proportion of negative comments and a lower proportion of positive comments are associated with increased abandonment. At the project level, the relationship between the number of core maintainers and abandonment varies across the studied projects. At the contributor level, lower experience is associated with higher abandonment, and female contributors exhibit lower abandonment rates than male contributors. These findings highlight the factors that are significantly associated with contributor‐abandoned PRs, as well as those that show no notable association, offering valuable insights for the OSS community and researchers.