In the last 12 years, the single largest group of developers, 11.95%, are writing for the love of the program. True, there are a significant number of volunteer Linux developers. In that year, 74.2% of the Linux kernel was written by programmers drawing a paycheck. And it's been that way since at least 2008. While that may be true for a handful of programmers, most Linux kernel developers work for major IT companies. The rumor persists to this day that Linux, and other open-source software, is written by amateurs hanging on in their mom's basement. After that, the cycle begins again with the next merge window. Multiple rc candidates are tagged until Linus and his lead maintainers think it's good and stable enough for a release. Once this release is tagged rc1, the integration testing, debugging, and stabilizing cycle begins. Each release cycle starts with a two week "merge window." This is when new functionality is added to the git repository for the next release. Can you say fast? I knew you could.ĭespite that fast pace, the Linux release cycle has become quite predictable. With the latest 5.8 kernel, the average was 10.7 commits per hour. From 2005 to 2008, there was an average of 2 commits per hour. One thing is certainly clear over the kernel's history: Change keeps coming faster and faster. They can add these missing discussion threads to the kernel archives. If you have access to the early Linux discussion threads, The Linux Foundation would love for you to contribute these to the Linux Kernel Archives administrators. One archive source, Indiana University's Linux kernel archives, contains LKML archives going back to 1995, but it has key gaps. USENET groups were also important though the 90s. Even the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) which was hosted on in its early days was only one of several important lists where work happened in the 90s.
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