ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the change history of various software systems for understanding their evolutionary behavior with respect to the type of changes performed over a period of time. The main objectives of this research work are: (a) What types of changes are most likely to occur in a software system during its evolution? (b) Is there any pattern in the type of changes performed over time in a system? An automated keyword based categorization technique is applied to the textual description of commit records of the software systems to categorize change activities into various types such as: Adaptive, Corrective, Perfective, Enhancement, and Preventive. The study finds that corrective changes are the maximum and preventive changes are the least in the software systems analyzed here.
