1 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
2 
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
3 
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
4 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
5 
<head>
6 
<link rev="made" href="mailto:esr@snark.thyrsus.com" />
7 
<meta name="description"
8 
content="Fetchmail participation statistics" />
9 
<meta name="keywords" content="fetchmail, growth, analysis" />
10 
<title>Trends in the fetchmail project's growth</title>
11 
<style type="text/css">
12 
/*<![CDATA[*/
13 
 span.c6 {color: brown}
14 
 span.c5 {color: red}
15 
 span.c4 {color: lime}
16 
 span.c3 {color: blue}
17 
 div.c2 {text-align: center}
18 
 h1.c1 {text-align: center}
19 
/*]]>*/
20 
</style>
21 
</head>
22 
<body>
23 
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" summary="Canned page header">
24 
<tr>
25 
<td width="30%" align="right">$Date$</td>
26 
</tr>
27 
</table>
28 





29

<hr />





30

<h1 class="c1">Trends in the fetchmail project's growth</h1>





31






32

<p>The scattergram below was made with Gnuplot 3.7 from data pulled





33

directly out of the project NEWS file using two custom





34

shellscripts, <a href="timeseries">timeseries</a> and <a





35

href="growthplot">growthplot</a>. If you see a broken-image icon,





36

upgrade to a <a





37

href="http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html">browser that can





38

view PNGs</a>.</p>





39






40

<div class="c2"><img src="growth.png"





41

alt="Fetchmail trends graph" /></div>





42






43

<p>The graph shows the population growth of the fetchmail project.





44

The horizontal scale is days since baseline, which is when I





45

started collecting statistics in October 1996 at version 1.9.0.





46

Left vertical scale is number of participants. There is one data





47

point for each release; therefore, the changes in density of marks





48

indicate release frequency.</p>





49






50

<p>The peak in the earliest part of the graph (before the note "Bad





51

addresses dropped") seems to be an artifact; I was not regularly





52

dropping addresses that became invalid at the time. Turnover on the





53

list seems to be about 5% per month (but that's just my estimate, I





54

don't have numbers on this).</p>





55






56

<p>The <span class="c3">blue scatter of squares</span> is total





57

participants. The <span class="c4">green scatter of crosses</span>





58

is the count of people on fetchmail-friends after I split the list.





59

The <span class="c5">cyan scatter of diamonds</span> is the





60

population of fetchmail-announce after the split.</p>





61






62

<p>The <span class="c6">brown scatter of diamonds</span> tracks





63

project size in lines of code (right vertical axis). The scale





64

relationship between this scatter and the other three is





65

arbitrary.</p>





66






67

<p>This graph is quite revealing. Several trends stand out:</p>





68






69

<ul>





70

<li>





71

<p>Over time, the project population displays rather consistent





72

linear growth.</p>





73

</li>





74






75

<li>





76

<p>The key event in the project's lifetime was release 4.3.0 in





77

October 1997, when I declared the code to be out of development and





78

in maintainance mode, and split the fetchmail list.</p>





79

</li>





80






81

<li>





82

<p>The run-up to 4.3.0 saw the most intensive spate of releases in





83

the project's history (the gap in that run happened when I took a





84

two-week vacation). It was followed by a significant slowdown.</p>





85

</li>





86






87

<li>





88

<p>After 4.3.0, the developer population remained fairly stable





89

around an average of about 250 participants.</p>





90

</li>





91






92

<li>





93

<p>Essentially all population growth after 4.3.0 happened on the





94

announce list, among people using fetchmail but not active





95

co-developers.</p>





96

</li>





97






98

<li>





99

<p>The growth trend in code size looks sublinear, perhaps





100

logarithmic.</p>





101

</li>





102

</ul>





103






104

<p>The linear growth trend in population is particularly





105

interesting; a priori we might expect geometric or logistic growth,





106

given that the project spreads by word of mouth.</p>





107






108

<p>It has been suggested that the linear growth rate is the result





109

of a situation in which both number of projects and the population





110

of eligible programmers are rising on trend curves of the same





111

(probably exponential) rate.</p>





112






113

<hr />





114

<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" summary="Canned page header">





115

<tr>





116

<td width="30%" align="right">$Date$</td>





117

</tr>





118

</table>





119






120

<br clear="left" />





121

<address>Eric S. Raymond <a





122

href="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com">&lt;esr@thyrsus.com&gt;</a></address>





123

</body>





124

</html>