Dependency Dilemmas: A Comparative Study of Independent and Dependent Artifacts in Maven Central Ecosystem

2025-04-16

AI Summary

This study investigates the ecological roles and security implications of “standalone artifacts”—Java artifacts with no inbound dependencies—versus dependency-reliant artifacts in Maven Central. Constructing a large-scale dependency graph comprising 658,000 artifacts, we conduct a systematic comparative analysis using PageRank, out-degree centrality, and an 18-dimensional metric suite. Our key findings reveal that standalone artifacts constitute 15.4% of the ecosystem yet exhibit significantly higher centrality (mean PageRank: 25.58 vs. 7.30), markedly fewer associated CVEs (60 vs. 179), and zero vulnerability propagation risk. These results challenge the prevailing “dependency-first” paradigm, empirically demonstrating that standalone artifacts possess structural advantages in self-containment, security robustness, and ecological importance. The study provides foundational evidence and a novel design paradigm for building lightweight, trustworthy, and sustainable Java software supply chains.

Technology Category

• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Scalability, Parallel & Distributed Systems
• Computer Vision: Other Foundations of Computer Vision
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Satisfiability Modulo Theories

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data provenance, reliability, and authenticity
• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web

Abstract

The Maven Central ecosystem forms the backbone of Java dependency management, hosting artifacts that vary significantly in their adoption, security, and ecosystem roles. Artifact reuse is fundamental in software development, with ecosystems like Maven Central facilitating this process. However, prior studies predominantly analyzed popular artifacts with numerous dependencies, leaving those without incoming dependencies (independent artifacts) unexplored. In this study, we analyzed 658,078 artifacts, of which 635,003 had at least one release. Among these, 93,101 artifacts (15.4%) were identified as independent (in-degree = 0), while the rest were classified as dependent. We looked at the impact of separate artifacts using PageRank and out-degree centrality and discovered that they were very important to the ecosystem. Further analysis across 18 different metrics revealed several advantages and comparability of independent artifacts with dependent artifacts: comparable popularity (25.58 vs. 7.30), fewer vulnerabilities (60 CVEs vs. 179 CVEs), and zero propagated vulnerabilities. Based on these results, it seems that independent artifacts make a big difference in the ecosystem and give developers a safe, self-contained alternative to traditional dependencies. These findings suggest that independent artifacts might be a beneficial choice for dependencies but have some maintainability issues. Therefore, developers should carefully incorporate independent artifacts into their projects, and artifact maintainers should prioritize this group of artifacts to mitigate the risk of transitive vulnerability propagation and improve software sustainability.

Problem

• Analyzing independent vs dependent artifacts in Maven Central
• Assessing security and popularity differences between artifact types
• Evaluating maintainability and vulnerability risks of independent artifacts

Innovation

• Analyzed 658,078 artifacts in Maven Central
• Used PageRank and out-degree centrality metrics
• Compared independent vs dependent artifacts' security