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donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:06:00 GMT

The source says: < href="http://blogs which is missing an a like so:

These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:14:00 GMT

The largest number of volunteers, but they mostly deliver smaller patches, the big chunks are from company-employees who have been dedicated to the task. Also a lot of them were active volunteers before that.

RedHat writes a large part. Canonical, I'm sad to say, does not. Also sounds familiar.

Greg

donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:46:00 GMT

Greg DeKoenigsberg is not a red hat employee anymore (he says as much on his blog). He wouldn't be able to write the kind of post he did if he was still an employee.

Did you notice the Unknown?

donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:24:00 GMT

Unknown accounts for 16.94%.
Could that be Canonical anonymously submitting stuff?

RE: Did you notice the Unknown?

donotreply@osnews.com (MamiyaOtaru) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:13:00 GMT

or it could be Santa Claus

RE: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:35:00 GMT

Indeed. When Greg KH held his keynote with statistics from core OS parts Linux distributions Canonical's immediate excuse was "We care more about higher levels than that. That statistic is unfair."
I wonder how/if Canonical will respond to this. Will they present 100 Paper Cuts as "proof" that they are the only entity around that cares about usability even though most paper cuts aren't even fixed by Canonical staff?

As a side note: One Xorg developer pointed out on his blog that Canonical employees file bug reports to Red Hat, because they can't fix them themselves: http://airlied.livejournal.com/72817.htmlEdited 2010-07-30 00:38 UTC

RE: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:58:00 GMT

RedHat writes a large part. Canonical, I'm sad to say, does not.

Neither does mandriva and opensuse apparently (unless opensuse is lumped in with Novell) but I never hear anyone complain about that. In fact, other than Novell and RH it's pretty much no real difference between the remaining contributors.Edited 2010-07-30 04:59 UTC

RE[2]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 05:54:00 GMT

http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/07/30/red-hat-canonical-and-gnome-con...

Dylan McCall's comment is easily the most interesting.Edited 2010-07-30 05:57 UTC

RE[3]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:29:00 GMT

http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/07/30/red-hat-canonical-and-gnome-con...

Dylan McCall's comment is easily the most interesting.

The whole article is pretty interesting.

Dave Neary (the guy who did the census) also chips in as a voice of sanity in the discussion:

http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/07/30/red-hat-canonical-and-gnome-con...

RE[2]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:09:00 GMT

Mandriva is a KDE-centric distributor on the constant verge of bankruptcy.
Not only does Mandriva still achieve almost 2/3 of Canonical's GNOME commits, Mandriva is actively working with many other upstream projects, including but not limited to OpenOffice, Linux kernel, Xorg, and (of course) KDE.
Overall Mandriva is a much bigger FOSS contributor than Canonical, though -- in all fairness -- Canonical improved in recent months (eg. Canonical now has two employees who care about KDE rather than just one).

PS: openSUSE is of course subsumed under Novell (at least the Novell people who work on openSUSE), just as Red Hat and Fedora are not separate entities.

A few things should be reinforced:

donotreply@osnews.com (HunterA3) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:50:00 GMT

The study was over the course of the entire gnome project, which has been around for many years. So has Red Hat. Canonical has been around for just a few short years, so naturally Red Hat has more contributions to Gnome.

Red hat is also a bigger company, with more money and more developers. Theyâve got the horse power to push the contributions upstream and I dare say more influence over what gets included and what doesnât.

Lastly, and this is the most important pointâ¦.

If Red Hat contributors are so bent out of shape because they are not happy with someone elses level of contribution, then they are forgetting what open source is all about. Itâs not about who contributes more. Itâs about freedom and choice. Could Canonical contribute more to upstream Gnome? Sure. But to label them as the next Microsoft because they are not conforming to the will of the Gnome project and only submitting code to them and only if it meets the standards of that one group is not only dangerous, it sounds very much like Apple and itâs IOS4 policies. Is that what weâre headed to? A one size fits all approach? Isnât that counter to everything open source stands for?

RE[3]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:31:00 GMT

Canonical also have one kernel developer now.

Shuttleworth

donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:53:00 GMT

Shuttleworth reaction:

http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/439

Good read on many levels.

RE[4]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:37:00 GMT

Canonical also have one kernel developer now.

An actual developer who commits upstream or just some dude whose capabilities are enough to report bugs to Red Hat and backport the fixes?

RE: Shuttleworth

donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:48:00 GMT

Good read on many levels.

Yeah, especially on the level when he talks about "tribalism makes you stupid" and "The very uncool thing about being a fanboy (or fangirl) of a project is that youâre openly declaring both a tribal affiliation and a willingness to reject the work of others just because they belong to a different tribe." in the light that he was one of the biggest flamers against Novell and the deals Novell signed with MS, "inviting" all SUSE personnel to quit their jobs at Novell and work on Ubuntu for free, because that's were the only true freedom lies (except that Ubuntu is not a democracy as we know since a few months), but then happily using all technology that came out of those deals (OOXML compatibility for OpenOffice.org, newer MS Remote Desktop protocols support for rdesktop, Mono, Exchange compatibility for Evolution, etc. pp.) without acknowledging former flaming as wrong at all.Edited 2010-07-30 22:54 UTC

RE: Did you notice the Unknown?

donotreply@osnews.com (Fettarme H-Milch) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:51:00 GMT

Could that be Canonical anonymously submitting stuff?

Canonical suddenly being silent about something they could use to advertise themselves? Yeah, right.. ;-)

RE: Shuttleworth

donotreply@osnews.com (da_Chicken) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:52:00 GMT

And the discussion continues:

http://gregdekspeaks.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/its-not-about-tribali...

Shuttleworth rephrases his flimsy arguments in the comments section, and seems to get very hot under the collar.

RE[2]: Did you notice the Unknown?

donotreply@osnews.com (Ventajou) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:50:00 GMT

Pshh!

Everyone knows Santa runs Haiku!!!

RE: Did you notice the Unknown?

donotreply@osnews.com (Tuishimi) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 02:58:00 GMT

No it's me. I admit it.

RE: A few things should be reinforced:

donotreply@osnews.com (lezard) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 18:45:00 GMT

The study was over the course of the entire gnome project

Actually no, only the last two years.

RE[2]: A few things should be reinforced:

donotreply@osnews.com (vivainio) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 19:30:00 GMT

Actually no, only the last two years.

Got a reference for that claim?

RE[2]: Shuttleworth

donotreply@osnews.com (gnufreex) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 06:36:00 GMT

What Novell did was not to be praised. They made that technology with knowingly breaking Microsoft patents. Only Novell have right to use that under the deal, and Microsoft can sue others for code that Novell created. And Novell is about to get bought.

Novell created a mess and oiled Microsoft FUD machine. They are nothing but Microsoft proxy now. Shuttleworth was right about Novell. He should bash them harder.

RE[2]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (BallmerKnowsBest) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 15:50:00 GMT

"RedHat writes a large part. Canonical, I'm sad to say, does not.

Neither does mandriva and opensuse apparently (unless opensuse is lumped in with Novell) but I never hear anyone complain about that. "

Didn't you get the memo? Using Linux or other open source software is normally A-okay (not to mention encouraged by legions of fanboys)... unless/until you gain any profit, success, or popularity from using that software.

At that point, according the GNU/fanboy group-think, you're required to turn your business into an non-profit charity with the sole purpose of pushing the FSF ideology. That, or contribute to the fund for delousing RMS.

RE[2]: Shuttleworth

donotreply@osnews.com (static666) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:44:00 GMT

http://gregdekspeaks.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/its-not-about-tribali...

That comment pretty much sums it all up for me. I wonder why people keep bashing Canonical, when it's the company that clearly has achieved the most in bringing Linux to the general masses, caring about usability and doing all the FOSS promotion the right way, thus getting much public and media attention.

I'd rather see it this way:

A) Red Hat - the first kid on the block, was fun to play with, burned the whole playground to commercialize the effort, then invited us all to play the new Fedora game, but many people got disappointed and went elsewhere. Relies on FOSS to get big money and produces big loads of commits rather as a by-product while executing the business plan. Money > Community.

B) Canonical - the new kid on the block, the coolest from the start, fasticanated about the FOSS idea, focused on needs of simple people, built a blossoming community and continuing efforts without selling out. Caring more about more thin and subtle things barbarian developers cannot normally grasp themselves, constantly taunted with rather blatant 'GIEF US MOAR COMMITS'. Community > Money.

C) Google - the evil kid. Probably gets a good laugh off the whole RH - Canonical flame war, happily fiddling with your private data.

Verdict:
A - jealous.
B - unworthy!
C - EVIL.

P.S. Wasn't FOSS about volunteering freely when you can/want/care to? Shouldn't it be extended into the FOSS corporate landscape? Both companies are already doing much, providing free distros for us people, without asking much (or anything at all) in return. So what right does one have to demand more of that volunteering work?

P.P.S. It's normal to see employees of rival companies get into an argument or two from time to time, just to boost their own ego/morale and get some motivation to do their daily grind for the benefit of us all. But I'd rather see people participating in that whole rant on forums and mailing lists having at least one commit to the GNOME upstream just to keep the whole discussion sensible enough.

So far from my users perspective this flame war is hilarious and truly enjoyable. Keep the heat up, guys.

RE[5]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (static666) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:18:00 GMT

Somehow I'm pretty sure his 'capabilities' suit his job description as developer just fine. If there are enough facts of him abusing some Red Hat kernel bug tracker instead of doing his job well probably you should report him to Canonical HR management staff. They will be grateful and maybe replace him with a more 'capable' one?

Or wait. Can this be an example of a normal FOSS work flow?

RE[5]: These numbers look very similair to the Linux Kernel

donotreply@osnews.com (Lennie) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:45:00 GMT

I think the kernel developer is a she, so it would never be such a dude you speak of. :-)