#2 As projects surpass one million lines of code, there’s a direct correlation between size and quality for proprietary projects, and an inverse correlation for open source projects:

Proprietary code analyzed had an average defect density of .98 for projects between 500,000 – 1,000,000 lines of code. For projects with more than one million lines of code, defect density decreased to .66, which suggests that proprietary projects generally experience an increase in software quality as they exceed that size. Open source projects with between 500,000 – 1,000,000 lines of code, however, had an average defect density of .44, while that same figure increased to .75 for open source projects with more than one million lines of code, marking a decline in software quality as projects get larger. This discrepancy can be attributed to differing dynamics within open source and proprietary development teams, as well as the point at which these teams implement formalized development testing processes.

#3 Linux remains a benchmark for quality:

Since the original Coverity Scan report in 2008, scanned versions of Linux have consistently achieved a defect density of less than 1.0, and versions scanned in 2011 and 2012 demonstrated a defect density below .7. In 2011, Coverity scanned more than 6.8 million lines of Linux code and found a defect density of .62. In 2012, Coverity scanned more than 7.4 million lines of Linux code and found a defect density of .66. At the time of this report, Coverity scanned 7.6 million lines of code in Linux 3.8 and found a defect density of .59.

Also Read: Saket Modi, The 22 Yr Old Who Saves Govt Agencies From Deadly Hackers

Also Read: 10 Safest Internet Browsers For Enterprises