Improving the Quality of GNU/Linux Distributions

The widespread adoption of free and open source software (FOSS) has lead to a freer and more agile marketplace where there is a higher number of components that can be used to build systems in many original and often unforeseen ways. One of the most prominent examples of complex systems built with FOSS components are GNU/Linux-based distributions. In this paper we present some tools that aim at helping distribution editors with maintaining the huge package bases associated with these distributions, and improving their quality, by detecting errors and inconsistencies in an effective, fast and automatic way.