Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) communities often use open bug reporting to allow users to participate by reporting bugs. This practice can lead to more duplicate reports, as inexperienced users can be less rigorous about researching existing bug reports. The purpose of this research is to determine the extent of this problem, and how FOSS projects deal with duplicate bug reports. We examined 12 FOSS projects: 4 small, 4 medium and 4 large, where size was determined by number of code contributors. First, we found that contrary to what has been reported from studies of individual large projects like Mozilla and Eclipse, duplicate bug reports are a problem for FOSS projects, especially medium-sized projects. These medium sized projects struggle with a large number of submissions and duplicates without the resources large projects use for dealing with these. Second, we found that the focus of a project does not affect the number of duplicate bug reports. Our findings point to a need for additional scaffolding and training for bug reporters of all types. Finally, we examine the impact that automatic crash reporting has on these bug repositories. These systems are quickly gaining in popularity and aim to help end-users submit vital bug information to the developers. These tools generate stack traces and memory dumps from software crashes and package these up so end-users can submit them to the project with a single mouse-click. We examined Mozilla's automatic crash reporting systems, Breakpad and Socorro, to determine how these integrate with the open bug reporting process, and whether they add to the confusion of duplicate bug reports. We found that though initial adoption exhibited teething troubles, these systems add significant value and knowledge, though the signal to noise ratio is high and the number of bugs identified per thousand reports is low. / Graduation date: 2012

Sukurti programinę įrangą dažnai skiriama per mažai laiko, programuotojai priversti skubėti. Dažnai nelieka laiko išsamiems programos testams atlikti, o produktas jau atiduodamas klientui. Programinę įrangą įsigiję vartotojai nori, kad rasti defektai būtų kuo greičiau pašalinti. Programinės įrangos kūrėjai suinteresuoti turėti patikimą grįžtamąjį ryšį su vartotojais ir kaupti defektų istoriją, kad vėliau iš sukauptų duomenų galėtų atlikti statistinius tyrimus. Projekto tikslas - realizuoti universalią programinės įrangos palaikymo sistemą (angl. software support system), pritaikytą tiek programinės įrangos kūrėjams, tiek galutiniams programinės įrangos pirkėjams. Panaudoti naujausias projektavimo ir programavimo technologijas, taip užtikrinant efektyvų tolimesnį sistemos palaikymą. Išanalizuoti ir panaudoti objektiškai orientuotą duomenų modelį, palyginti jį su standartiniais duomenų valdymo modeliais. Ištirti laikines modelių charakteristikas. / Software projects must meet development time constrains and continuously changing requirements. Software developers work under pressure to meet task deadlines and there is often no time left for exhausting software testing. Errors happen. It's very important to find them in proper time, collect and make bug reports. Also corrected errors and bugs can't be forgotten. After shipping beta and final versions of the software, developers miss feedback from the users. To accumulate information about software errors can be a problematic task. Work purpose is to create universal bug reporting system, adapted to software developers and end users. This system is accessible via local network and internet. Application developed using modern OOP technologies and .NET 2.0 Framework. Finally, the object oriented data model research was accomplished. This data model was compared with standard data models. A performance and features of data models was tested. The critical conclusions were accepted.