Linux

New report reveals trends in Linux development since April 2008 and hints at discussion points for LinuxCon Kernel Panel

SAN FRANCISCO – August 19, 2009 — The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it is publishing an update to its April 2008 study on Linux kernel development. The new report is written by original authors and kernel developers Jonathan Corbet and Greg Kroah-Hartman, and the Linux Foundation’s Amanda McPherson.

The August 2009 Update reprises the title “Linux Kernel Development: How Fast is it Going, Who is doing it and Who is Sponsoring it?” and is available today at http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/whowriteslinux.pdf. This community paper illustrates a large and distributed developer and corporate community that supports the expansion and innovation of Linux. The Linux kernel has become a common resource developed on a massive scale by companies who are fierce competitors in other areas.

The updated study finds that since April 2008, there has been a 10 percent increase in the number of developers contributing to each kernel release and that a net of 2.7 million lines of code have been added. This level of activity has resulted in an average of 5.45 patches being accepted per hour, an increase of 42 percent since the original study. Some of the accelerated pace of development can be attributed to new demand for Linux in emerging markets, such as netbooks, auto and energy, as well as to the establishment of the new linux-next tree (a staging area for the next kernel cycle that enables the development process to scale more rapidly).

Corbet and Kroah-Hartman will participate on a panel at LinuxCon (http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon) which will be focused on the kernel development process and which will explore some of the trends surfaced in the new study. Linux creator Linus Torvalds and kernel community members James Bottomley, Arjan van de Ven and Chris Wright will join them on the keynote panel Monday, September 21, 2009 at 2 p.m. PT.

Corbet and Kroah-Hartman, also members of the Linux Foundation’s Technical Advisory Board (TAB), reviewed the last six kernel releases, from 2.6.24 through 2.6.30, representing about 500 days of Linux development. The report goes into detail on how the Linux development process works, including who is contributing, how often and why.

Highlights include:

via linux-foundation.org