چکیده (انگلیسی):

Linux operating system (LOS) is a sophisticated man-made system and one of the most
ubiquitous operating systems. However, there is little research on the structure and functionality
evolution of LOS from the prospective of networks. In this paper, we investigate
the evolution of the LOS network. 62 major releases of LOS ranging from versions 1.0 to
4.1 are modeled as directed networks in which functions are denoted by nodes and function
calls are denoted by edges. It is found that the size of the LOS network grows almost
linearly, while clustering coefficient monotonically decays. The degree distributions are almost
the same: the out-degree follows an exponential distribution while both in-degree
and undirected degree follow power-law distributions. We further explore the functionality
evolution of the LOS network. It is observed that the evolution of functional modules is
shown as a sequence of seven events (changes) succeeding each other, including continuing,
growth, contraction, birth, splitting, death and merging events. By means of a statistical
analysis of these events in the top 4 largest components (i.e., arch, drivers, fs and net), it is
shown that continuing, growth and contraction events occupy more than 95% events. Our
work exemplifies a better understanding and describing of the dynamics of LOS evolution.