STM Journals Peer-reviewed research from Consortium e-Learning Network

Journal of Open Source Developments Review Article

Balancing Quality Assurance and Scalability in Modern Open-Source Software: A Review

  1. Jajimoggala Snehitha Department of Computer Science and Engineering
  2. Manas Kumar Yogi Pragati Engineering College (A), Surampalem, A.P.

Abstract

The Modern Open-Source software development has increased rapidly and now is being used as critical infrastructure across the world. As the software expands maintaining high quality while supporting large scale has become the major challenge and tension globally. Traditional quality assurance methods are no longer sufficient when open-source software(oss) projects are handling with millions of users, developers and downloads. This review discusses four main issues: sustainability of package registers when used excessively; security challenges in software supply chains and SBOM adoption; the impact of AI based tools on software quality; human factors such as maintainer burnout. This study shows that the increasing scalability tends to new quality risks. Due to the rapid rise in open-source software, the process of its development, sharing, and maintenance has undergone significant transformation. This is the greatest challenge as the company needs to strike the proper balance between quality assurance and expansion. Testing, security checks, and review of code are all still largely a human burden and community support.

Keywords

References (30)

  1. Adewumi A, Misra S, Omoregbe N. A review of models for evaluating quality in
  2. open source software. IERI Procedia. 2013 Jan 1;4:88-92.
  3. Avgeriou P, Kruchten P, Ozkaya I, Seaman C. Managing technical debt in software
  4. engineering (dagstuhl seminar 16162). Dagstuhl reports. 2016;6(4):110-38.
  5. Decan A, Mens T, Grosjean P. An empirical comparison of dependency network
  6. evolution in seven software packaging ecosystems. Empirical Software Engineering.
  7. 2019 Feb 15;24(1):381-416.
  8. Goggins S, Lumbard K, Germonprez M. Open source community health: Analytical
  9. metrics and their corresponding narratives. In2021 IEEE/ACM 4th International
  10. Workshop on Software Health in Projects, Ecosystems and Communities (SoHeal)
  11. 2021 May 29 (pp. 25-33). IEEE.
  12. He H, Miller C, Agarwal S, Kästner C, Vasilescu B. Speed at the Cost of Quality:
  13. How Cursor AI Increases Short-Term Velocity and Long-Term Complexity in Open-
  14. Source Projects. arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.04427. 2025 Nov 6.
  15. Garcia D, Mirakorhli MT, Dillon S, Laporte K, Morrison M, Lu H, Koscinski V,
  16. Enoch C, Fazelnia M, Chen R. A landscape study of open-source tools for software
  17. bill of materials (SBOM) and supply chain security. In2025 IEEE/ACM 3rd
  18. International Workshop on Software Vulnerability Management (SVM) 2025 May 1
  19. (pp. 37-45). IEEE Computer Society.
  20. Kapitsaki GM, Kramer F, Tselikas ND. Automating the license compatibility process
  21. in open source software with SPDX. Journal of systems and software. 2017 Sep
  22. 1;131:386-401.
  23. Lerner J, Tirole J. Some simple economics of open source. The journal of industrial
  24. economics. 2002 Jun;50(2):197-234.
  25. Mockus A, Fielding RT, Herbsleb JD. Two case studies of open source software
  26. development: Apache and Mozilla. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and
  27. Methodology (TOSEM). 2002 Jul 1;11(3):309-46.
  28. Nocera S, Romano S, Di Penta M, Francese R, Scanniello G. On the adoption of
  29. software bill of materials in open-source software projects. Journal of Systems and
  30. Software. 2025 Dec 1;230:112540.
Support