Replication Package for "What Quality Aspects Influence the Adoption of Docker Images?"

Replication Package for "What Quality Aspects Influence the Adoption of Docker Images?" Abstract: "Docker is a containerization technology that allows developers to ship software applications along with their dependencies in Docker images. Developers can extend existing images using them as base images when writing Dockerfiles. However, a lot of alternative functionally-equivalent base images are available. While many studies define and evaluate quality features that can be extracted from Docker artifacts, it is still unclear what are the criteria on which developers choose a base image over another. In this paper, we aim to fill this gap. First, we conduct a literature review through which we define a taxonomy of quality features, identifying two main groups: Configuration-related features (i.e., mainly related to the Dockerfile and image build process), and externally observable features (i.e., what the Docker image users can observe). Second, we ran an empirical study considering the developers’ preference for 2,441 Docker images in 1,911 open-source software projects. We want to understand (i) how the externally observable features influence the developers’ preferences, and (ii) how they are related to the configuration-related features. Our results pave the way to the definition of a reliable quality measure for Docker artifacts, along with tools that support developers for a quality-aware development of them"

《哪些质量维度影响Docker镜像的选用？》复现包
摘要：Docker是一种容器化技术，可支持开发者将软件应用及其依赖项一同封装至Docker镜像（Docker Image）中。开发者在编写Dockerfile（Dockerfile）时，可将现有镜像作为基础镜像进行扩展。当前存在大量功能等价的可选基础镜像，尽管已有诸多研究定义并评估了可从Docker制品（Docker Artifact）中提取的质量特征，但开发者选择某一基础镜像而非其他的评判标准仍不明确。本文旨在填补这一研究空白。首先，我们通过文献综述构建了质量特征分类体系，识别出两大类别：一是配置相关特征（主要与Dockerfile及镜像构建流程相关），二是外部可观测特征（即Docker镜像用户可观测的特征）。其次，我们针对1911个开源软件项目中的2441个Docker镜像开展实证研究，旨在探究两个核心问题：(i) 外部可观测特征如何影响开发者的偏好；(ii) 这些特征与配置相关特征之间存在何种关联。本研究成果为制定Docker制品的可靠质量度量标准铺平了道路，同时也可为支持开发者开展质量感知型Docker制品开发的工具提供支撑。