Kernel Kandy

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In April (as we write this), the Linux Foundation published a progress report with the plain-wrapper title Linux Kernel Development, authored by Greg Kroah-Hartman, Jonathan Corbet and Amanda McPherson. Relying heavily on Jonathan's gitdb and other tools, they probed the kernel.org website and the git kernel depository and organized the results into a neatly arranged assortment of tasty nuggets. Here are a few of them:

• For each day over the past 2.5 years, 3,621 lines were added, 1,550 lines removed, and 1,425 lines changed. "That rate of change is larger than any other public software project of any size".
• Fifteen percent of kernel code contributions over the past 3 years have come from the top 10 individual developers. Thirty percent has come from the top 30 developers.
• The top five individual developers, in order, were Al Viro, David S. Miller, Adrian Bunk, Raif Baechle and Andrew Morton. Each contributed over a thousand changes.
• More than 70% of kernel development is being done by contributors being paid for their work.
• The size of the individual development community has doubled in the last three years.
• Of 31 listed corporate sources of kernel code changes (that is, companies employing individual developers contributing changes), the top two, with 13.9% and 12.9% respectively, were None and Unknown. These were followed in order by Red Hat (11.2%), Novell (8.9%), IBM (8.3%) and Intel (4.1%). "The numbers presented are necessarily approximate", the report says.
• Companies outside the IT business contribute too. For example, "The 2.6.25 kernel will include an implementation of the PF_CAN network protocol which was contributed by Volkswagen. PF_CAN allows for reliable communications between components in an interference-prone environment -- such as that found in an automobile."

Their concluding line is a model of hedged understatement: "With the current expansion of Linux in the server, desktop and embedded markets, it's reasonable to expect this number of contributing companies – and individual developers -- will continue to increase."

- Doc Searls

Source: https://www.linux-foundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php