The Linux Foundation releases annual Kernel Development Report

The Linux Foundation has released its 2017 Linux Kernel Development Report. The report analyzes the work done by 15,600 developers over more than a decade, as well as more recent trends.

 

This is the eighth such report that is released on a roughly annual basis to help illustrate the Linux kernel development process and the work that defines the largest collaborative project in the history of computing. This year’s paper covers work completed through Linux kernel 4.13, with an emphasis on releases 4.8 to 4.13. The last report was released in August 2016 and focused on 3.19 to 4.7.

 

Key findings from this year’s paper include:

?     Roughly 15,600 developers from more than 1,400 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since the adoption of Git made detailed tracking possible. Since the last report, over 4,300 developers from more than 500 companies have contributed to the kernel; 1,670 of these developers contributed for the first time, comprising about a third of contributors.

?     The Top 10 organizations sponsoring Linux kernel development since the last report include Intel, Red Hat, Linaro, IBM, Samsung, SUSE, Google, AMD, Renesas and Mellanox. The complete top 30 contributing organizations can be seen in the full report.

?     The rate of Linux development continues to increase, as does the number of developers and companies involved in the process. The average number of changes accepted into the kernel per hour is 8.5, a significant increase from the 7.8 changes in the last report, which translates to 204 changes every day and over 1,400 per week. The average days of development per release increased slightly to 67.66 days from 66 last year, with every release spaced either 63 or 70 days apart, providing significant predictability. The 4.9 and 4.12 development cycles featured the highest patch rates ever seen in the history of the kernel project.

?     The number of unpaid developers may be stabilizing, with these developers contributing 8.2% of contributions, a slight increase from 7.7% in last year’s report. This is still significantly down from the 11.8% reported in 2014. This is likely due to kernel developers being in short supply, leading those who demonstrate the ability to submit quality patches to not have trouble finding job offers.

 

The report is co-authored by Jonathan Corbet, Linux kernel developer and editor of LWN.net, and Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel maintainer and Linux Foundation fellow. This year’s report also features interviews with 12 Linux kernel developers and maintainers.

 

“The incredible rates of contribution and participation in the Linux kernel demonstrate the continued strength and scalability of the kernel community,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. “This report provides important information that helps show how incredibly effective the collaborative development model can be for one of the most essential software projects in history.”