OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/20052/Linux_Kernel_Development_Stats Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:29:23 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Any? http://osnews.com/thread?322937 http://osnews.com/thread?322937 "Supports more...devices than any other OS in history."

Hmm... Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (i3X171UM) Comments Amateur funding http://osnews.com/thread?322939 http://osnews.com/thread?322939 The funding by amateurs and fans outstrips that of even Red Hat. Amazing! Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gpierce) Comments RE: Any? http://osnews.com/thread?322941 http://osnews.com/thread?322941 Yea, my guess is NetBSD outdoes it... Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ValiantSoul) Comments figures http://osnews.com/thread?322942 http://osnews.com/thread?322942 Canonical had about 6 changes in the past 5 years; they are in the 300th
position. GKH was very emphatic that 'Canonical does not give back to the community'. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (justinc) Comments RE: Amateur funding http://osnews.com/thread?322944 http://osnews.com/thread?322944 It isn't funding. It is people hacking on their own time. As a organization, Red Hat is on the top

http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/08/red-hat-leads-open-source-co... Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rahul) Comments RE[2]: Any? http://osnews.com/thread?322945 http://osnews.com/thread?322945 You might want to compare it with

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-1.html Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rahul) Comments RE[2]: Any? http://osnews.com/thread?322946 http://osnews.com/thread?322946 Actually, no. In the OLS keynote address, Greg Korah-Hartman of Novell made the claim that Linux has surpassed NetBSD in its support for hardware. (http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html)

Still, I have to admire the NetBSD guys for creating a kernel that's been ported to as much hardware as it has, and with 1/1000th (plus or minus my imagination) of the developers as Linux. Plus, I love their slogan: "Of course it runs NetBSD." Apt.

Edit: Whoops. That would be the same person making the same claim at an early presentation he's given.Edited 2008-07-15 05:15 UTC Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rexstuff) Comments RE: figures http://osnews.com/thread?322947 http://osnews.com/thread?322947
Canonical had about 6 changes in the past 5 years; they are in the 300th
position. GKH was very emphatic that 'Canonical does not give back to the community'.


Possibly because Canonical are more concerned with user-space issues than kernel-space ones? Many of the bigger kernel changes seem to be to get it working well on big-iron or embedded systems, which is not the main space where Canonical have operated (although that may be changing). Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (StaubSaugerNZ) Comments RE[2]: figures http://osnews.com/thread?322949 http://osnews.com/thread?322949 That the kernel does not concentrate on desktop issues is sort of a myth. There are tons of desktop specific work happening. Take a look at the latest release were webcam drivers are getting merged as just one item. Ubuntu is ignoring this process to a large extend and patching their kernel pretty heavily.

http://kernelslacker.livejournal.com/127218.html

I doubt they are fairing much better in terms of user space patches including major projects like GNOME. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rahul) Comments RE[2]: Amateur funding http://osnews.com/thread?322950 http://osnews.com/thread?322950
It isn't funding. It is people hacking on their own time. As a organization, Red Hat is on the top

http://www.press.redhat.com/2008/04/08/red-hat-leads-open-source-co...


Correct and more to the point, the combined Corporate funding with hiring coders and more is the bulk of the work. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE: figures http://osnews.com/thread?322955 http://osnews.com/thread?322955 The GPL gives Cannoical the right to not contribute if they don’t want to - and there is nothing illegal or wrong with that.

For some people the kernal is an appliance, and they stand on it's shoulders, focusing on the work above, and not the work below. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc) Comments RE[2]: Amateur funding http://osnews.com/thread?322957 http://osnews.com/thread?322957 From the article:

"# Who's funding Linxu kernel development ?

1. Amateurs 18.5%
2. Red Hat 11.6%..."

He says "funding" suggesting financial, not code, conributions. Or is he equating the two? In either case, it remains surprising that amateurs outrank all others. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gpierce) Comments not BSD? http://osnews.com/thread?322958 http://osnews.com/thread?322958 I always thought the BSDs pride themselves with supporting the most architectures..? Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Googol) Comments Presentation http://osnews.com/thread?322959 http://osnews.com/thread?322959 Greg's presentation:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=L2SED6sewRw Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (RJop) Comments RE[3]: figures http://osnews.com/thread?322962 http://osnews.com/thread?322962 Instead of whining, grab the Ubuntu code and submit it yourself to Linus or whomever you have to send it to these days so you can take the credit. This is the GPL. They must provide the code and they do, so if nobody is using it, that's not Canonical's fault at all.
Most likely, they did submit code and were turned down because they weren't RedHat.
Or relicense it with the GPLv4, that should give you freedom to have slaves that write code for you. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sakeniwefu) Comments RE[4]: figures http://osnews.com/thread?322963 http://osnews.com/thread?322963 This isn't whining and there is no incentive to help them if they continue to ignore upstream and take up crappy patches. There is merely pointing out some facts with references and pretty much no code was submitted to upstream ever. If you notice the number one category of contributors are purely hobbyists and there are hundreds of different organizations contributing so claiming that the code was not accepted because it didn't come from Red Hat shows massive ignorance. Whether or not the license allows them to do that is a entirely different question and something that was never questioned. Moral obligations are different from legal obligations.Edited 2008-07-15 10:09 UTC Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Rahul) Comments RE: figures http://osnews.com/thread?322967 http://osnews.com/thread?322967
Canonical had about 6 changes in the past 5 years; they are in the 300th
position. GKH was very emphatic that 'Canonical does not give back to the community'.

Currently Launchpad is holding more than 1700 kernel related bugs:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux

Maybe Canonical doesn't directly pay kernel devs, but Ubuntu endorses lots of kernel development. Canonical is just an easy target because they're so well-known. But they're definitely not the same kind of company as Red Hat and shouldn't be viewed as such. Seeing their "Engineering" web page clearly proves that they're just getting started.

http://www.canonical.com/services/engineering

But seeing how they boast themselves about contributing to Linux tastes a little wrong, if GHK is just half right about his claims:

http://www.canonical.com/aboutus/contributions

But only 6 contributions!? Aaaaah, something's got to be wrong here. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Ben Jao Ming) Comments RE[2]: Any? http://osnews.com/thread?322974 http://osnews.com/thread?322974
Yea, my guess is NetBSD outdoes it...


It doesn't apparently by most counts, but Linux is only a kernel, NetBSD is a full operating system. This means that you can build the same userland for all supported platforms. Or even better, you can cross-compile NetBSD on one platform for virtually all platforms. And cross-compiling is initiated by just one build.sh command. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (danieldk) Comments RE: not BSD? http://osnews.com/thread?322978 http://osnews.com/thread?322978 NetBSD is the most portable OS. That is, it's designed to be easily ported to different hardware platforms. Linux is the most ported, but it's a lot more work to do so. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Johann Chua) Comments RE[3]: Any? http://osnews.com/thread?322982 http://osnews.com/thread?322982
Actually, no. In the OLS keynote address, Greg Korah-Hartman of Novell made the claim that Linux has surpassed NetBSD in its support for hardware. (http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html)


Great slideshow thanks. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jimbofluffy) Comments RE[2]: figures http://osnews.com/thread?323093 http://osnews.com/thread?323093

But only 6 contributions!? Aaaaah, something's got to be wrong here.


You are correct, there is something wrong.

http://blog.phunnypharm.org/2008/07/canonical-and-linux-kernel.html

That is not to say that Canonical contributes nearly as much as the Redhat team or others, but the numbers GregKH gave are inaccurate. Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kokopelli) Comments