Publications

PhD Thesis

A Measurement Framework for Analyzing Technical Lag in Open-Source Software Ecosystems
Ahmed Zerouali
University of Mons, Belgium - 2019
[Slides][Video]

Journals

[J6] - On the Impact of Security Vulnerabilities in the npm and RubyGems Dependency Networks
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens, Alexandre Decan, Coen De Roover
Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) - 2022

[J5] - Back to the Past -- Analysing Backporting Practices in Package Dependency Networks
Alexandre Decan, Tom Mens, Ahmed Zerouali, Coen De Roover
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering - 2021

[J4] - On the Practice of Semantic Versioning for Ansible Galaxy Roles: An Empirical Study and a Change Classification Model
Ruben Opdebeeck, Ahmed Zerouali, Camilo Vel´azquez-Rodr´ıguez, Coen De Roover
Journal of Systems and Software - 2021

[J3] - On the Usage of JavaScript, Python and Ruby Packages in Docker Hub images
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens and Coen De Roover
Science of Computer Programming - 2021

[J2] - A multi-dimensional analysis of technical lag in Debian-based Docker images
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens, Alexandre Decan, Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona and Gregorio Robles
Empirical Software Engineering (EMSE) - 2021

[J1] - A Formal Framework for Measuring Technical Lag in Component Repositories - and its Application to npm
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens, Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona, Alexandre Decan, Eleni Constantinou, Gregorio Robles
Wiley Journal on Software Evolution and Process (JSEP) - 2019

Conferences

[C19] - The Docker Hub Image Inheritance Network: Construction and Empirical Insights
Ruben Opdebeeck, Jonas Lesy, Ahmed Zerouali and Coen De Roover
23d IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM) - 2023

[C18] - Helm Charts for Kubernetes Applications: Evolution, Outdatedness and Security Risks
Ahmed Zerouali, Ruben Opdebeeck, Coen De Roover
20th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR) - 2023

[C17] - Control and Data Flow in Security Smell Detection for Infrastructure as Code: Is It Worth the Effort?
Ruben Opdebeeck, Ahmed Zerouali, Coen De Roover
20th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR) - 2023

[C16] - Mining for Framework Instantiation Pattern Interplays
Yunior Pacheco, Ahmed Zerouali, Coen De Roover
22nd IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM) - 2022

[C15] - Smelly Variables in Ansible Infrastructure Code: Detection, Prevalence, and Lifetime
Ruben Opdebeeck, Ahmed Zerouali, Coen De Roover
19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR) - 2022

[C14] - Prevalence and Evolution of License Violations in npm and RubyGems Dependency Networks
Ilyas Said Makari, Ahmed Zerouali, Coen De Roover
20th International Conference on Software Reuse (ICSR) - 2022
[Slides]

[C13] - Variant Forks – Motivations and Impediments
John Businge, Ahmed Zerouali, Alexandre Decan, Tom Mens, Serge Demeyer, Coen De Roover
29th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER) - 2022

[C12] - Identifying Versions of Libraries used in Stack Overflow Code Snippets
Ahmed Zerouali, Camilo Velazquez-Rodriguez and Coen De Roover
18th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR) - 2021
[Slides]

[C11] - Andromeda: A Dataset of Ansible Galaxy Roles and Their Evolution
Ruben Opdebeeck, Ahmed Zerouali and Coen De Roover
18th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR) - 2021
[Slides]

[C10] - Does Infrastructure as Code Adhere to Semantic Versioning? An Analysis of Ansible Role Evolution
Ruben Opdebeeck, Ahmed Zerouali, Camilo Velazquez-Rodriguez and Coen De Roover
20th IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM) - 2020

[C9] - ConPan: A Tool to Analyze Packages in Software Containers
Ahmed Zerouali, Valerio Cosentino, Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona, Gregorio Robles, Tom Mens
International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR) - 2019
[Slides]

[C8] - On the Relation between Outdated Docker Containers, Severity Vulnerabilities, and Bugs
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens, Gregorio Robles and Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona
26th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER) - 2019
[Slides]
Best Paper Award

[C7] - On the Impact of Outdated and Vulnerable Javascript Packages in Docker Images
Ahmed Zerouali, Valerio Cosentino, Tom Mens, Gregorio Robles and Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona
26th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER) - 2019
[Slides]

[C6] - On the Diversity of Software Package Popularity Metrics: An Empirical Study of npm
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens, Gregorio Robles and Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona
26th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution, and Reengineering (SANER) - 2019
[Slides]

[C5] - SortingHat: wizardry on software project members
David Moreno, Santiago Dueñas, Valerio Cosentino, Miguel Angel Fernandez, Ahmed Zerouali, Gregorio Robles, Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona
IEEE/ACM 41st International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) - 2019

[C4] - An Empirical Analysis of Technical Lag in npm Package Dependencies
Ahmed Zerouali, Eleni Constantinou, Tom Mens, Gregorio Robles, Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona
17th International Conference on Software Reuse (ICSR) - 2018
[Slides]

[C3] - Graal: The Quest for Source Code Knowledge
Valerio Cosentino, Santiago Duenas, Ahmed Zerouali, Gregorio Robles, Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona
18th IEEE International Working Conference on Source Code Analysis and Manipulation (SCAM) - 2018

[C2] - Analyzing the evolution of testing library usage in open source Java projects
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens
24th IEEE International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER) - 2017
[Slides]

[C1] - An empirical comparison of the development history of cloudstack and eucalyptus
Ahmed Zerouali, Tom Mens
International Conference on Smart Digital Environment - 2017
[Slides]

Book Chapters

[B1] - Analysing Infrastructure-as-Code Ecosystems
Ruben Opdebeeck, Ahmed Zerouali and Coen De Roover
Software Ecosystems: Tooling and Analytics (Springer) - 2023