MOVis: A Visual Analytics Tool for Surfacing Missed Patches Across Software Variants
This tool addresses the challenge of maintaining consistency in clone-and-own software development for developers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing PaReco classifications.
The authors tackled the problem of missed patches across software variants by developing MOVis, a visual analytics tool that helps developers locate and understand missed fixes, enabling more efficient maintenance of consistency across variants.
Clone-and-own development produces families of related software variants that evolve independently. As variants diverge, important fixes applied in one repository are often missing in others. PaReco has shown that thousands of such missed opportunity (MO) patches exist across real ecosystems, yet its textual output provides limited support for understanding where and how these fixes should be propagated. We present MOVis, a lightweight, interactive desktop tool that visualizes MO patches between a source and target variant. MOVis loads PaReco's MO classifications and presents patched and buggy hunks side-by-side, highlighting corresponding regions and exposing structural differences that hinder reuse. This design enables developers to quickly locate missed fixes, understand required adaptations, and more efficiently maintain consistency across software variants. The tool, replication package, and demonstration video are available at https://zenodo.org/records/18356553 and https://youtu.be/Ac-gjBxHJ3Y.