  Open-source is frequently described as a driver for unprecedented
communication and collaboration, and the process works best when projects
support teamwork. Yet, open-source cooperation processes in no way protect
project contributors from considerations of trust, power, and influence.
Indeed, achieving the level of trust necessary to contribute to a project and
thus influence its direction is a constant process of change, and developers
take many different routes over many communication channels to achieve it. We
refer to this process of influence-seeking and trust-building as trust
ascendancy.
  This paper describes a methodology for understanding the notion of trust
ascendancy and introduces the capabilities that are needed to localize trust
ascendancy operations happening over open-source projects. Much of the prior
work in understanding trust in open-source software development has focused on
a static view of the problem using different forms of quantity measures.
However, trust ascendancy is not static, but rather adapts to changes in the
open-source ecosystem in response to new input. This paper is the first attempt
to articulate and study these signals from a dynamic view of the problem. In
that respect, we identify related work that may help illuminate research
challenges, implementation tradeoffs, and complementary solutions. Our
preliminary results show the effectiveness of our method at capturing the trust
ascendancy developed by individuals involved in a well-documented 2020 social
engineering attack. Our future plans highlight research challenges and
encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration to create more automated, accurate,
and efficient ways to model and then track trust ascendancy in open-source
projects.
