{"paper":{"title":"The Ground Is Shifting: A Reflection on the Foundations of Software Measurement","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cs.SE","authors_text":"Audris Mockus, Bogdan Vasilescu, Thomas Bock","submitted_at":"2026-08-04T01:41:07Z","abstract_excerpt":"For most of the past six decades, software measurement relied on labor-intensive manual collection of proprietary data, which hampered progress. The shift to repurposing traces from version control and related tools dramatically expanded data availability$\\unicode{x2014}$especially with the rise of open-source software$\\unicode{x2014}$but hinged on an often unstated assumption: that these tools are used by professional developers to build genuine software systems. However, as trace-generating tools, data types and scale, and empirical methods have all evolved, it has become clear that changes "},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2608.03007","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2608.03007/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}