Is mutation score a fair metric?

Comparing the mutation scores achieved for test suites, one is able to judge which test suite is more effective. However, it is not known if the mutation score is a fair metric to do such comparison. In this paper, we present an empirical study, which compares developer-written and automatically generated test suites in terms of mutation score and in relation to the detection ratios of 7 mutation types. Our results indicate fairness on the mutation score.