Bus factor

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In software development, a software project's bus factor is an irreverent measurement of concentration of information in a single person, or very few people. The bus factor is the total number of key developers who would if incapacitated, as by getting hit by a bus, send the project into such disarray that it would not be able to proceed.^[1]

Getting hit by a bus could take many different forms. This could be a person taking a new job, having a baby, changing their lifestyle or life status: the impact would have the same effect.

Commentators have noted that the Linux kernel's bus factor may be as low as one; the project's founder and chief architect, Linus Torvalds.^[1]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Poisonous People, a talk that includes (among other topics) discussion of bus factor and how to increase it