TECHNICAL DEBT ASSESSMENT IN OPEN SOURCE APPLICATIONS USING STATIC CODE ANALYSIS

The management of technical debt is critical to the sustainability of software quality throughout the evolution of software systems. This study investigates how technical debt levels change across multiple versions of four widely used open source software projects, nopCommerce, OrchardCore, RavenDB, and ShareX. Versions 30, 28, 20, and 15 of these projects, respectively, were systematically analyzed using the NDepend static analysis tool to measure technical debt levels. The results reveal that technical debt tends to accumulate, decrease, and stabilize. While nopCommerce exhibits significant increases in technical debt after major version migrations, OrchardCore maintains low levels, demonstrating the effectiveness of modular architecture in debt management. RavenDB exhibits a limited but increasing debt profile, while ShareX tends to reduce its debt level over time. These findings highlight the importance of continuously monitoring and proactively managing technical debt, especially during major structural changes. The study presents empirical findings on the evolution of technical debt in open source projects and demonstrates the value of static analysis tools such as NDepend to software quality management.