Their conclusion states "... confirming the importance of a large base of contributors to the success of open source software". Also note that my questions are

Their conclusion states "... confirming the importance of a large base of contributors to the success of open source software". Also note that my questions are facetious and are my own. My apologies if that wasn't clear. Overall, it's a good study of properties that popular repositories have. In terms of factors that impact the popularity, I found it lacking.