Slashdot Mirror
75% of Linux Code Now Written By Paid Developers
i_want_you_to_throw_ writes "During a presentation at Linux.conf.au 2010 in Wellington, LWN.net founder and kernel contributor Jonathan Corbet offered an analysis of the code contributed to the Linux kernel between December 24 2008 and January 10 2010. The Linux world makes much of its community roots, but when it comes to developing the kernel of the operating system, it's less a case of 'volunteers ahoy!' and more a case of 'where's my pay?'"
It's not clear from the article why anyone should perceive a contradiction between having high ideals and getting paid to do something you enjoy.
Yep, I said it. You can't un-read it!
What's wrong with that?
How much does a line of code cost?
Now you are being marginalized.
Writing software is hard. But we all knew that ten years ago. But it was fun to believe the bullshit spewed by teenage Slashdot posters and licensing nutcases who spoke of the coming downfall of commercial software by open source developers.
How many paid kernel developers does microsoft have ? How many does Sun have ? I can't find any straight numbers on the web.
A thought strikes me, though. It seems unlikely to be more than a few dozen each, at most.
The Linux world makes much of its community roots, but when it comes to developing the kernel of the operating system, it's less a case of 'volunteers ahoy!' and more a case of 'where's my pay?'
Since when does community == volunteers?
That large, well funded corporations are now contributing members of the linux community is a Good Thing.
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
I rely upon Linux for my business. If something isn't all it should be, or developments don't happen as fast as they could, I'm gratified to know that money is changing hands and somebody might get canned and replaced by another, better professional.
If Linux wants to sit at the adults' table -- and it clearly has the depth and breadth of functionality to do so -- then there needs to be the kind of professional accountability in its developers that only a paycheck can engender.
There seems to be some assumption that "community" means "unpaid". Not at all. The Free Software community includes a whole lot of people who get paid to use software to meet the needs of employers. If meeting those needs involves improving bits of Free Software, the employer benefits from having those contributions integrated into the product.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So, exactly how much are you paying for the Linux you rely on for your business?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
You see the same thing in academic publishing. There seems to be a sentiment that getting paid for an article would somehow compromise the objectivity of the writer. However, people contributing these articles are doing it in fields they study professionally, and it is often essential resume building work. This is not a situation I'd like to see mirrored in the computer world.
...it's less a case of 'volunteers ahoy!' and more a case of 'where's my pay?'"
I'd say its more a case of "I get paid to do this? who-hoo".
LOL! Let those mod points fly! Strike them down!
Come on! Show us we're wrong. Go start a new 0.1pre-alpha text editor on SourceForge with that oh so important GPL license slapped on so no one steals your precious work. LOL...
The computing world has left you incompetent clowns on the trashheap of computing history.
> It's not clear from the article why anyone should perceive a contradiction between having high ideals and getting paid to do something you enjoy.
Sure, it's cool to be able to say that you're paid to work on the Linux kernel. But how many of that paid 75% would do it for free? How many would have to do something else to put food on the table if there were not a corporation to pay them?
What I take away from this is the fact that the Linux "community" is dominated by corporations. In many cases (but not all), for-profit corporations, all trying to compete against several other for-profit corporations named Microsoft, Apple, Google, Oracle, etc.
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
It happened in many cases that someone would start contributing code to the kernel, someone working for a company (possibly developing code, possibly not) would see their name on the kernel mailing list, and would get them hired on by the company, for the purposes of contributing to the kernel, certain patches the company wanted. They would be kept on to continue developing code (its likely that the company is using Linux in one or more places and they are happy contributing the cost of 1 developer, as its cheaper than paying for 100 licenses of some other software, and they can also audit code quality (not possible with the other stuff). You get to see what you are using, you don't have to just accept what they give you and say thankyou, here's my money, with Linux you can look it all over and determine the value before using it.
Linux is a mature project, amounts of code written today have a minuscule impact on the overall project compared with amounts of code written in the late 90s. When all the heavy lifting was being done, where were all the paid developers then?
Nothing to see here. Linux is as much a volunteer project as it has ever been. If companies are willing to pay for polishing the kernel, I have no objections.
In most things open source (at least, open source by birth, less so originally proprietary projects that get eventually opensourced) you first get that itch to scratch, and then -- given you do it better than others -- you find there are people willing to pay you for that.
It's not like you first find yourself needing money, and then consider getting into an open-source project for a pay in preference to other means and wages.
So why isn't Google more involved in kernel development? I assume they use Linux extensively and hence make billions from using it. Do no evil, do no good?
How many years has it been listening to teenage Slashdot poster proclaiming the dawn of a new era was just around the corner? How many years has it been that Bearded GNU Freaks have been working toward their Retarded GNU Nirvana?
Commercial, paid for software developers and companies were pitied. Claimed to be soon to be relics of a new era.
They couldn't possibly compete with the Power of the Entire Internet/Open Source World.
They couldn't possibly compete with the Million Eyes ensuring bugfree open source software.
Google and Apple have made complete joke out of every single claim made here on Slashdot. Android, OS X, iPhone partially or fully the most free open source license, BSD, based. While Ubuntu and the open source world's cellphone efforts are jokes in the eyes of the rest of the world.
As part of my job, I port Linux to our embedded boards and occasionally hack a driver or two.
However, in order not to scream out to our competitors "Hey! We're making a new product!", the small amounts of code I send pack at patches (it's a pain in are done so though a nondescript gmail account.
I suspect this practice is fairly widespread. Therefore, I'd say that 75% is an under-estimate.
I'm a professional I get paid to code whatever problem is placed in front of me Windows, Unix etc its just code to me. I do however try to do my best on All code because that's my job satisfaction.
It is a known fact that open source software grows on trees and that's why it is available for free. All other commercial software is developed by skilled engineers who are fed on grown open source vegetables. I find it strange that people think that developers have lots of time on their hand and generally don't have a live and nothing better to do then to write perfect code every time all day long. Developers should be paid, and in my opinion paid a lot. Expecting other people to work for free and expect some SLA on quality is just not realistic. Open Source is about creating quality product by allowing other to review the code and contribute. It's not about making software free, that's just a by product. Don't really understand why this is news, but nice to see that 75% of developers get a reward for their efforts. Still makes we wonder if the other 25% are independently rich or are just millionaires to be able to afford spending their time.
I've always wondered if a geek or anti-IP person won a substantial lottery. Wouldn't we hear about it? Are there any open source coders happily contributing away, having won the lottery? You'd have some example of a free game, music, or movie by such a person.
From the "fine" article, a breakdown.
18% -- no company affilation.
7% -- not classified.
12% -- Red Hat
8% -- Intel
6% -- IBM
6% -- Novell
3% -- Oracle
40% -- Other companies with less than 3% of contributions.
Some notes:
75% work for companies.
35% for the top 5 companies.
I work as a Linux Administrator, and have supported several Fortune 100 companies. They usually actually purchase annually renewing RedHat licenses (read phone/email support and updates). The last time I checked, 2008, Red Hat was the largest contributor to the Linux kernel.
A huge part of the new kernel code are new device drivers. Those drivers are often developed by the hardware companies or sometimes reverse-engineered.
It's a good thing to see that more and more hardware vendors contribute drivers for their devices to the Linux kernel.
It might not be clear from the article, but the reason why this might be bad should nonetheless be obvious to anyone who doesn't live in a cave and is able to reason.
How is this any different than the "corporatism" in American politics, where laws, rules, bureaucracies, and enforcement all wind up favoring those who "donate" (as if it's some genuine sort of philanthropy?) the most cash to political parties and campaigns?
In this instance, it would mean that code revisions and improvements would inevitably favor the interests of those corporations motivated to pay people to develop and "donate" the most code to the kernel. The more people they pay to develop code for the Kernel, the further they might be able to bend the kernel to their will and desires.
The exact same thing has happened to the World Wide Web and all the protocols used to facilitate it: it has evolved to favor corporate desires and interests, not the desires and interests of those who are using it to learn and share. It's a small miracle that we are even still able to actually use the Web for learning and sharing, given that learning and sharing are so often directly contrary to the goals of corporate marketeering.
Oh, man. To be a fly on the wall when Ballmer reads THIS little line...
"Within that field, Red Hat topped that chart with 12%, followed by Inte with 8%, IBM and Novell with 6% each, and Oracle 3%. Despite the clear commercial rivalry between those players, central kernel development worked well, Corbet noted."
And everyone thinks the Faraday Cage around his office was to keep his signals safe. The boys in Security know it is really to keep the chairs in his office...well, in his office.
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1519942&op=Reply&threshold=-1&commentsort=3&mode=thread&pid=30853886
It seems that many of the misunderstandings in relation to free software, are because there is not a separate word between free as in freedom and free as in cost. Whereas there is in many other languages.
Free software and the community has never been about it being free in cost.
It's true. Most large companies have some sort of requirement for production machines to be supported.
There are definitely plenty of paid coders on the kernel. But are they counting the kernel hackers that companies have chosen to sponsor as paid or as volunteer? Does a grass roots volunteer kernel hacker stop counting once a company sponsors him to be able to contribute full time?
What percentage of these paid developers work for a company that derives its revenue primarily from software development?
In software? Where?
how to invest, a novice's guide
Why should someone feel guilty about being paid for their efforts? Business is a not a bad thing in itself, as people who work do need to be compensated, that is unless if they are independantly wealthy.
I have no issue whatsoever with a developer being compensated for their time, nor does it even raise an eyebrow for me.
I think the ethical standard here is that Linux is open source. That is open for peer review, open for other developers to work further on the ideas and ideals. Too often do people confuse this sort of "free" with the other sort: Mana from heaven.
Yes, you can download and install a linux copy for absolutely free, but thankfully, there is money to be made outside of just getting copies of bits and bytes to a PC. I do not think that there is anything wrong with that at all, and good on the highly intelligent and skilled developers of Linux saying "Where's my paycheck?"
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
So who decided that the Open Source movement was about *not* making money? I thought it was about enlightened self-interest. If we make the source of today's apps available to the coders of tomorrow, everyone wins. Up-and-comers get a chance to see real-world (and sometimes, cutting-edge) code - and the community (of software developers) gets new devs who show up already knowing some of the things *we* had to figure out the hard way.
The new guys get the benefit of our experience and in ten years, we get to hire better new guys.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
What about applications?
For the exception of a very small percentage of applications (MySQL, NetBeans, Apache), every other application is coded by volunteers.
... professional accountability...
In software? Where?
If anything, the meritocracy of the OSS model is going to provide at least as much accountability as a paycheck can.
Seems to me the paycheck is going to assure conformity with the employer's needs - many of which have no technical basis.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
free lunch. Yep your high school economics teacher wasn't a complete idiot.
Because you're employed by a business which is more interested in itself than the broader linux community. The patches you create may be of a use to the broader community, but business priorities will generally come first. Now, it is a given that some (perhaps even a significant portion) of these developers are given a long leash, but the reality is the leash is always there. The resignation of Con Kolivas is a good example of why extensive corporate interest is bad: see http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm
As someone who doesn't like RPM based distros and as someone who makes a very good living on Linux, I've gone the Linux Foundation membership route $100 a year is nothing compared to the money Linux makes me each year.
Asmodee`: ibm said they were investing 1 billion $ into open source projects
DAL9000: Asmodee`: do you know what happens when you invest money in opensource projects?
DAL9000: NOTHING! it buys the coders some beer, nachos, and porn to watch instead of coding.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
If Linux wants to sit at the adults' table -- and it clearly has the depth and breadth of functionality to do so -- then there needs to be the kind of professional accountability in its developers that only a paycheck can engender.
Billions lost on failed UK IT projects by the 'adults' with developers receiving very fat paycheques shows it guarantees neither success of the project nor accountability within it.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
So, exactly how much are you paying for the Linux you rely on for your business?
$699. I thought everyone paid this.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
This article proves it.
6/10. Moderately good troll, but don't try to be all things to all people.
You can make a good case pointing out that this has happened millions of times before, and you can make a good case that cell phones are making a laughingstock of OSS, but trying both makes you seem confusing.
If you want an AC's advice, focus on the cell phone angle. Keep saying that Android & OS X are based on FOSS but go beyond their base in ways that the open source community never could. Try to blur the line between hardware and software (Apple, Apple, Nexus One, Apple!) and say that because you can't have a computer without hardware, which is propietary, there is no such thing as a good open source computer.
And then blur it all into websites. Google is a company and a lot of FOSS people use Google, therefore they are hypocrites and can't handle living in the world they push on everyone else. Then focus back on cell phones. Go for the 'the average user doesn't care about FOSS' angle - they hate that - and demand a 100% free piece of hardware to run a 100% free OS. If you somehow get a bite by someone who interprets 'free' as 'unlocked' then talk about how they paid five times the price and switch your argument to support - again, cite Google as proprietary.
I hope to hear from you again! Good luck!
See subject above, and please: Learn to write more than 2 words to make your points. Your "see dick and jane run" prose in your replies truly and absolutely sucks.
To what extent do contributing companies have the same motives as contributing individuals? To what extent do these, possibly disparate, motivations coincide with the needs of end users? I think this is the underlying question inherent in this article, but I don't really have any firm answers.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In 2010, Linux runs your television, microwave, toaster, car, camera, phone, garage door opener and dildo, but geeks still fail to comprehend why you want a Macintosh for the computer you actually use in front of you.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
You're a troll so I won't go into details.
$ make available
Accountability? Have you looked at an EULA lately? You forfeit any kind of accountability the moment you accept these license terms. And sometimes you have to pay in First Born Children, too. Adult's table indeed.
The only kind of convenience that gives you is knowing where to knock to beg for support. Or you can pay them extra for that (i.e. additional contracts and rights and all). But wait, there are companies like Red Hat that'll do that, too. And that tells us this kind of service is not necessarily tied to software development. The only way to get your kind of "professional accountability" is to employ those developers yourself.
Accolades on choosing an appropriate SlashID:
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I HATE that "tux as a bitch in a suit" icon! Turns my stomach.
That's got to be the longest non-responsive post I've ever read.
Linux is the adults table. The adults all sit at it. You've heard of Google, IBM, Sun, Oracle, Novell?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
... businesses are learning that contributing to a shared resource has value. And that efforts made to monopolize resources (like patents do) aren't as valuable as was assumed in the past.
Have gnu, will travel.
why anyone should perceive a connection between having high ideals and this story.
The open issue is whether most software companies could make money writing exclusively open source software.
The linux-libre project removes binary blobs from its variant of the Linux kernel. I'm not convinced that most users' variants of the Linux kernel are entirely free software.
Digital Citizen
Business types, particularly the MBA crowd believe in two patently false memes:
... and Apple, Google and many other well run companies flourish. In Europe, in contrast to the US you can not get good venture funding unless the lenders are convinced that the management team are technically competant. So the CEO may be a generalist but the CTO better not be.
1. Management is a universal skill, and can be applied to anything, without understanding what that THING is, and
2. Business sucess is about the Jock/Geek culture of American High Schools,
Well, no it isn't, you can not manage a complex technical enterprise without knowing what you are doing, but (1) above is the big lie. To do well, you need good technical and management skills, and charisma. This is why Balmer has run M$ into the ground, Carly nearly killed HP, Boeing is in the shit with the Dreamliner
My sense, as an outside observer, but one who knows the USA well, is that there is a very widespread dis-satisfaction with the State of the Union, which President Obama, for all his undoubted skills is having a very hard time changing, TeaPartiers, the swamp that is Congress and the Wall St./Main St. disconnect mean that serious HARD WORK must be done, not just offshoreing another 10000 jobs to Chennai.
get it
echo '75% of Linux Code Now Written By Paid Developers' | sed 's/Written/Copy\/Pasted/g' > there-fixed-it.txt
I use linux professionally. So does most of the web. We're "forced" to GPL any improvements we have to make in the process of getting the job done. "Forced" is in quotes because fair is fair - so did everyone else including those bat**** crazy people following Linus and Sallman who wrote the seeds that grew into this and frankly I feel I'm getting more then I could ever give (at best correcting the occasional bug). GPL is there so it's clear to the managers that if you have a problem with that, feel free to pay quite handsomely. It's cheaper to improve linux (and/or the rest of GNU) then it is to not use it. Epic score - that was the whole point all along, right?
So they have to pay people to work on linux now, things must be really going downhill.
Just because a significant portion of Linux and open source software is developed pro-bono by the contributed efforts of many people, it does not mean that no one is paid to develop this body of work. Monetary contributions are made, people are paid so they can make a living. This is good and correct. Folks who think that all efforts toward the public good should be done for free should get their heads out of their nether regions.
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
It's not clear from the article why anyone should perceive a contradiction between having high ideals and getting paid to do something you enjoy.
One day a situation will arise when you will be expected to do something you dont enjoy.
You will choose between love and money, you will begin to discover how much your high ideals are worth.
I wish I had mod points to waste on an AC. Jolly good show chap! Keep up the good work. Stiff upper lip and all that nonsense. Lots of laughs, mate.
cat sig >
RedHat?
Its been a while, but last i checked, Redhat was the only linux distro that isn't free. so.. maybe the revenue from that is paying these greedy developers?
Far too few, but there is a maximum scrum in the Cathedral.
... combined, and it shows more and more. Google is now the paren to two new, special purpose Linux Distros, Android & Chrome, whic as they mature, will continue to backfeed the community.
The question goes to the Cathedral and the Bazaar dichotomy and the Brooks "Mythical Man Month" about OS 360, and how you count the dev team, kernel core or that and associated userland.
DEC: Tops 10 2 x lead + 6 mostly
AT&T Bell Labs: 3 x lead + 20
VAX-VMS: 1-2 lead + 40 (inc RSX-11 drivers)
WNT+: initially 1-4 lead + 20, clone VMS
Linux: initially 1 lead + 0, now 1 + 25 leads +4000
The 4000 number says it all. Rob Gingell, who used to run SUN's Solaris operation understood, and used to say, If we SUN make life difficult for our users, by most often making SUN specific firmware and foobared drivers, our customers will loose trust, write their own, in Universities and wealthy companies, and after a year all this work at high priced lockins will just hurt us.
He was right.
Linux has > 10 X the developers working on Windoze, Solaris, the RT-OS's
"Ideals" don't put food on the table, don't pay for a sportscar to impress women, and don't keep a roof over your head.
Income does.
However, if you can get someone to pay you to do what you love, what's wrong with that?
Answer: absolutely nothing.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Paging Richard Stallman! Paging Richard Stallman! Line one.
This can be swept under the rug if the volume of freely given software is small.
It actually doesn't matter what the volume of free software is as long you have a revenue stream to support development. It's software; the number of copies made has nothing whatsoever to do with the effort required to create it. Even if everyone in the world downloaded Red Hat Linux right now, they would still have their customer base and still contribute to development at the same rate they do now. Why? Because their customers CHOOSE to pay them for their services, and do so on a regular basis regardless of development progress. They are not locked into a single vendor or coerced into untimely upgrades or anything--if they were going to put their money elsewhere they would have done so already.
Therefore, I rest my case. Paying for data, any data, is fundamentally flawed both in theory and in practice. Paying for support and service when you want it, from whom you want it, and using software that does not lock you into specific vendors is the only sustainable business model in the software industry. Microsoft et al need to pull their heads out of the sand and get with the picture.
.
P.S.
For some time OSS developers chose the time, thus dragging projects for years (while competing commercial jobs were done in months.)
And how many of those commercial jobs done in months were rush jobs that were released full of holes and bugs? Just saying, speed isn't always the best benchmark for comparison.
In a world where certain hardware developers are wont to open their specs, this is not surprising. When we talk about "Linux" proper, that's the kernel. It's much easier for employees of HW companies to contribute(with or without official support) there. I would likewise expect the remaining 25% to be made up of hard-core computer scientists and/or mathematicians.
So, its actually large companies essentially shorting any competition with a bid at zero. Now you can't make money by competing.
It's software; the number of copies made has nothing whatsoever to do with the effort required to create it.
Poor choice of words on my part. By "volume" I mean amount of time spent on developing F/OSS. Indeed it doesn't matter how many times the bits were downloaded. But your time is finite, and short of leaving your day job you can do only so much.
Because their customers CHOOSE to pay them for their services
I can only confirm that. At my last job an expensive multi-core server got RH installed; in part thanks to Xilinx supporting their toolchain on Linux. Everyone is happy. And the IT people needed that support from RH when they had a problem integrating with the Windows infrastructure (domain) already in place. The Windows Server option was considered and rejected because it supports *less* functionality than Linux, and that is because some UNIX heads at Xilinx (who I met) chose to use some UNIX technologies that are poorly done in Windows.
And how many of those commercial jobs done in months were rush jobs that were released full of holes and bugs?
True, that happens pretty often (we don't need to go beyond Windows Update to prove that.) But overall, commercial outfits are driven by the need for revenue, and as a side effect it also pleases the customers who get the product sooner. It is important to note that most customers don't need perfect software that is too late, they'd rather use imperfect software now, as long as they can manage the crashes. This is not a guess on my part, most of my professional experience is surrounded by such software. I'd gladly take an app that is perfect and does what I need, but there is no such thing (examples: CST, Xilinx etc.)
Even in less exotic areas the GIMP is often rejected by power users in favor of Photoshop because, for example, Photoshop has more smarts to do things, whereas the GIMP gives you mostly the basic tools to move pixels around. The billion dollar company can throw money at the problem to add intelligence into the product, whereas GIMP is limited by a few factors, such as the number of man-hours of coders, expertise of coders (how many of them do AI for image recognition?) and by interests of those coders, because the work is voluntary. If only the GIMP project could afford to pay a top notch AI specialist to code the advanced tools of Photoshop. But they can't, and even the GUI of the GIMP is not as polished as Photoshop's, even though probably everyone on GIMP's team is qualified to code that.
I put my few dollars in, and feel much the same way.
Of course people should get paid for their work. If the cost of software goes down, the cost of a finished device goes down, and sales and profits for hardware manufacturers go up. Why do you think every major hardware company chips in on linux development? It is smart business. Google, Apple, and thousands of other smaller companies would not exist without open source software. Not only the software itself, but the skills of programmers who have learned the art through the availability of high quality open source code. There are a lot of people making a lot of money using open source software, which is great. The smart ones recognize this and give back to the community that made them. Where's the problem?
If Linux wants to sit at the adults' table.
I guess you never used a cluster. I still have to see a scientific cluster (most computer intensive thing you can find) running under something else than linux, unix or bsd (this last one is for the mac clusters out there). As an astrophysicist, i already used a correct number of top 100 clusters, all running under a variant of Linux.
Nuff said...
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
Then go stick your head in a barrel of shit.
Because that is exactly where it belongs. Writing kernel code is damn hard not one line of it is trivial. It requires a massive commitment of time and energy and people deserve to be compensated for it. Writing kernel code is not a hobby if you write anything of substance it is work.
I have been actively studying the kernel code for about two months now and it gives me headaches just trying to keep the big picture in mind as I just read much less try and write any of it, although that is my end goal.
Linux is no longer a hobby it is a main stream OS that is unning a great deal of corporate America and those corporations realize this and hire people who write kernel code and fix things that need fixing. Linus is the gate keeper, but he long ago set the kernel free and allowed it to blossom into what it is and even he will admit that what is happening is a "good thing".
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Sorry, but whats the joke here? (I really just don't get it)
Is there something to the $699 number that I'm missing or is it just some random number you made up to imply that you are paying for something thats free and you should have never paid for?
I've got a cold so I'm slow today, to the point of being stupid actually so I feel like I'm missing something that should be obvious since you're rated +5. Its of course entirely likely that being sick has infected my funny bone as well ...
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I hate statistics that are produced but read incorrectly. It's fine to gather data to prove your point about something, but in reality, these stats are talking about a downturn in community support. I'd say that it's a show of a much higher level of community support.
Except with rare exceptions a volunteer developer that does it purely in their spare time might be able to contribute 1/4 to 1/2 the time of a full time paid developer. Given the "hacker factor" many of the paid developers are working greater than 40 hours a week by a considerable margin. That means that either there's a HUGE number of volunteer developers or that the ones that are there are producing a great deal more than the paid developers in the same period of time. This is more likely since volunteer developers are more likely to work on what interests them and given that, will be more motivated and move more rapidly.
Also keep in mind that a commitment on this scale from volunteers if doubly impressive since given that there are SOOOO many paid developers producing SOOOO much code, these guys (gals inclusive in the masculine form) are still pumping out so much even though they probably don't have to.
The downside of course is that there's a possibility that the volunteer developers have become counter-productive to the project since companies don't find a need to finance a commitment of 10 developers, 2 documenters and 5 testers on a project because some guy in his basement is hacking on it at home while munching Doritos and sucking down The Dew.
How many years has it been that Bearded GNU Freaks have been working toward their Retarded GNU Nirvana?
And we have yet to see the Hurd!
I question the metric they used for this.
Seems they are counting lines of code written and equating that directly to 'contribution'. This has several obvious problems:
1. I really hope he wasn't counting comments. Documentation is important, but is a separate task from coding./p>
2. Its possible to write the exact same code in a different number of lines (things like 'if' statements spring immediately to mind. Was he counting lines in the files, or being counting statements?
3. Not all lines of code are of equal value.
4. There are many ways to solve the same problem, some with more lines than others. This doesn't always correlate with speed of efficiency.
5. If the line managers of the people doing corporate Linux kernel contributions are using the same metric, then those contributors are going to make damn sure they produce the longest code possible that does the job they've been tasked with.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
lol
Get with the times man.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Now then, there's two choices for the correct spelling: humorously or humorlessly. My guess, based on the above comment, would be the latter....:-)
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Linux is gospel among software enthusiasts, that is code not earned by bribery and mercenaries but carved into flesh and blood by trial and error on the front.
With Linux being contributed in any manner of commerce, then those same commercial forces have the ability to retract their code and manipulate the use of it by conditions that in-effect destroy the purpose GNU stood for to raise Linux in before HURD.
Now this convinces me that HURD is all there is that remains untainted by commerce. That does it. Linux after kernel 2.4.20 is all effected. If SCO wasn't a hint at the intentions to destroy Linux is one way or another, then you are a clueless `luser' that shouldn't be commenting on discussion you aren't interested.
To retain the Freedom of software, Linux is always to be delivered as a freeborn Son that none are allowed to steer in any direction but efficiency of it's usability. If there are any strings attached, then it will always be pulled back to who realy owns and controls it's development at the highest value. Microsoft and others are known to make investments to derive a controlling interest in the direction of competing products, and just like OpenGL and other technologies this has been in their cross-hairs just like a bunch of Jews and Jesuits underming a country through currency and ecclesiastic order.
Failures in gov.uk IT projects are down to antiquated software development methods.
Only in software development is a 34% success rate (in 2004) considered a vast improvement (100%) over a decade previously.
What are rather ambitious projects are persistently entrusted to the waterfall method of development ; the first problem being that people seem to just smunge the first three steps into one and have subject-matter experts produce a handful of word documents describing what they think is the best technical architecture.
And then wonder why they don't get something that works. The second problem being using the waterfall method at all. I don't think I've yet seen a successful project that used it for anything more complex than a glorified file download service.
I guess waterfall persists because it allows people to get the design phase out of the way and then go back to being terribly busy with their existing non-optimized tools and process. Iterative methods mean those nasty developer people popping up all the time and asking questions that are too hard for a Monday morning ; and you can't even get rid of them when the software has been delivered!
But government likes a process consisting of clearly delineated steps. Heck, they even invented one.
now if you could start paying the other 25% you could technically start firing them for writing bad code and slowing everyone else down.
Lots of people seem to be getting tied up arguing that money doesn't make something non-free. I think we can all agree on that and move on: Move on to discussing the impact of the involvement of more paid developers. If you want to ensure the health of a project, you need to be aware of forces at work within it. There are paid developers who act like kernel-hackers and then there are paid developers who simply try to fix bug X in release Y for hardware Z which is being released next Tuesday. This isn't evil, but neither is it true to say it's irrelevant. Finally we should acknowledge that the financial self-interest of companies rarely aligns perfectly with the principals of freedom: That's OK different developers ideas rarely align completely, but it is a different sort of force, and growth of it does influence the nature of the community and the development process.
Billions lost on failed UK IT projects by the 'adults' with developers receiving very fat paycheques shows it guarantees neither success of the project nor accountability within it.
That, and if you look at Unix-like systems, you will see that all of them are dead or dying, except for those that are being carried by volunteers (BSD, GNU, Darwin (mostly BSD), and perhaps OpenSolaris). If "the kind of professional accountability in its developers that only a paycheck can engender" is what a software project needs to "sit at the adults' table", then maybe sitting at the adults' table is not what you really want for your project. After all, all those adults are now either dead or on life support.
To stay with the analogy, perhaps what a project needs to thrive is not to become an adult, but to stay a child.
And it makes sense, too: projects supported by the flow of money will wither when the money flow stops. This in addition to the argument that it always worth keeping in mind: profit-driven companies will do what maximizes profits, not necessarily what is best for the world. These two things often align, but not always and never completely.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Of course you can make money out of FOSS. Stallman was saying this for years! And now when it comes that it is the case people seems to be confused why it is so. The great thing about FOSS and it's business model as such is that you get money for your _work_. If you don't work you starve. Companies do not like to do pure FOSS business because it "brings a lot of risk". The stereotype is there that you must _own_ things. But in the end, it is always comes to the point where people trust you because of your _work_ and because of your _can_ altitude, not because you own products. Grown up in FOSS community I am not attracted to the proprietary models of business in computing as I believe it somewhat rottens the industry. Especially when people are not aware of FOSS value - as opposed to commercial benefit.
The mentality is out there, first thing we are thought in universities is that "how to protect what is yours". And this is just wrong. As long as there will be such altitude, people will not understand that the great value is in giving. Not taking. But I said too much already.. :)
thanx,
They couldn't possibly compete with the Million Eyes ensuring bugfree open source software.
"A pile of shit has a thousand eyes." - Teddy Duchamp.
Squirrel!
"Remember, these people are getting paid for their labor, not paid a million times over, every time a copy of the code is distributed."
Now only if we could apply this concept to the music industry.
What do you think a web site is? Programmers write once, and now don't even have to distribute it. It just sits there and they collect a check.
You tend to be far more forgiving when something is both free (beer) and, feels like it belongs to you instead of some distant oligarchy.
Linux doesn't belong to you any more than Windows does. The code is clearly copyrighted to the authors and all of this illusion of public ownership is merely that. You have a EULA with Linux just as much as you do with Windows.
I like Linux because I like the cheap C++ tools and its a great platform for running a web server, but I'm under no illusions that its better than Windows across the board. Windows 7 wins that contest hands down for the desktop client department, just by mere virtue of having DirectWrite,Direct2D, analogues and a low latency audio, all of which Linux lacks. And following up the stack from that, there's nothing like WPF.
So its like, if you want to host a web site, use Linux, but if you want slick client side graphics and sound, then you gotta go Windows. And its -always- been this way, DOS/Windows whatever staying perpetually one step ahead of Linux - because most people in the Linux world really don't care about what they consider to be gaming features in an OS.
This is my sig.
The title of the article make it sound like if Linux was receiving and giving nothing in return. Many of these companies would not even have a chance to decently survive without Linux, and they would become just Microsoft puppets.
Dear
*spoiler*
While I realise that nothing kills a joke like having it explained...
It's a play on the word "posthumously".
free software is alive and well only because it makes a lot of commercial sense for companies that do not sell software but have software component in their products, get over it.
A person who works on something that s/he has a burning passion.
this is the type of people who made scientific revolution, industrial age, digital age possible. this is the way it should be.
not to mention that most of those current paid developers probably went out to linux on a passion, either during or after college or without college education, knowing that they could hurt their chances of getting a job in a traditional company. ie they basically jumped into life blindfold, armed with only passion. now, through passion and perseverance, most of them have become top notch developers in linux.
and, behold, linux can pay people now. why it shouldnt ? how many of you would be courageous enough to go all out on your passion like that ? granted, now there is actually a chance that you will find a job with linux after you graduate from college, if thats your field, but it is now. most of the people who are employed for some time in linux jobs were studying in college at a time when linux was just something microsoft could laugh about. i knew some people from CS department, going all out on linux by those times. a lot of people thought they were burning their future. a lot of people couldnt muster the guts to go for their passion. those people did.
again, i emphasize ; noone else but such people deserve being paid, and being paid more.
Read radical news here
Linux is seriously one of the best things to happen to the embedded design market. I'd describe it as "a big pile of work that's already done for you, for free".
We've currently working on a project which uses a NXP LPC32xx ARM9 processor. NXP themselves wrote a pile of supporting code for the processor's peripherals and contributed it to the kernel - doing this work lets them say "hey, our chip runs Linux" and makes the chip much more attractive to their customers. Like us; we decided the chip had the right set of peripherals and price for our application, and we were planning on running Linux anyway, so it was a perfect fit.
So we built our board and started verification. Most things worked right out of the box, except for Ethernet; after fighting for a couple of days with it, we found a bug in NXP's code which didn't work with our PHY configuration, which we fixed and now it's working great. Kernel patch is on the way, which should hopefully save the next guy some work.
End result? NXP's happy because they're selling their chips, and we're happy because we're selling our products. And Linux improves in the process. What's not to love?
Actually, you're wrong. Not all from the Top100 clusters are running Linux.
There's at least one running Windows. Taking HPC as a whole, there's also AIX, Super-UX, OpenSolaris (reference: http://www.top500.org/stats/list/34/os).
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
Developers getting paid to do work? I thought we were smarter than that.
Aah. Sorry then.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Having read a lot of the responses (though not all), I am surprised this point does not come up.
...) need a way to keep the Microsoft Windows monopoly in line.
When Linus Torvalds started Linux, he obviously did it for love not money. Indeed the early contributors were driven by their ideals.
But the SUCCESS of Linux is because a lot of those big companies (IBM, Sun/Oracle, Intel, Google,
Remember that for decades (1980-2000) they tried to do that by offering their proprietary UNIX operating systems. That failed miserably, which is the main reason they were forced to learn and band together around Linux.
I like Linux, I think its great. But the SUCCESS of the open source movement, and especially Linux, owes everything to the scare Microsoft has given the entire industry.
So: the people who are being payed to write Linux, are getting the money because they are producing the most credible challenge to MS. It has nothing at all to do with high ideals.
No it's more of a case of developers starting or working on a project, then getting hired by a company and being allowed to continue work on the project.
Think about it. If you are developing code that a lot of people use, you have a proven track record, and you produce, it makes you look very attractive as an employee. If you get hired by a company such as red hat, they will see features they want added to open source projects. If the features get approved by the project then you are paid to work on open source.
The circumstances of how and why people get paid to work on open source has been misrepresented a little here.
The moral of the story is if you are a developer it's good to work on community code. Eventually someone will hire and pay you for it if you are good at it.
But the SUCCESS of Linux is because a lot of those big companies (IBM, Sun/Oracle, Intel, Google, ...) need a way to keep the Microsoft Windows monopoly in line.
No, the success is because GPL makes it economically favourable to build code for Linux.
Red Hat is really a distributor. What original products have they developed?
Novell is a primarily a proprietary software company.
Linux Foundation - I don't know - non-profit perhaps
Oracle = another proprietary software company who dabbles in Linux.
Name me some successful software companies who created a new product and is 100% open source.
Excuse me? The resignation of Con Kolivas has nothing to do with corporate interests, but everything with Con being a loose cannon who doesn't play nice, and instead of backing up his arguments with reproducible benchmarks sends Slashdot-recruited fanbois to LKML to try and get his patches into the kernel.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Most Linux end users are more likely to contribute to applications, translations, documentation, art, sounds, music, not the kernel. The Linux kernel itself is probably more intersting to those closer to the bare metal, which would be administrators or hardware developers.
Twinstiq, game news
I was at a set-top box company, based in Germany, in the late 1990s. We had every intention of building out multimedia set-top box on Linux, even though that wasn't as doable as it is with today's modern Linux kernel (and, well, faster CPUs doesn't hurt, either). The big problem: finding anyone who knew Linux and wanted to actually get paid. We advertised, we attended Linux shows, etc... no go. Might have been practical if we were based in California, but at the time, there was a real issue among many Linux hackers of working for pay. So we wound up using OS/2 on the same hardware. I was largely the hardware boss, but I also wrote some drivers -- tragically, one place Linux was way ahead (physical drivers had to be written in 16-bit code under OS/2, at least at the time).
Nice to see things change. Not that spare time, hobby, educational, etc. contributions are a bad thing at all. But commercial concerns doing all that work is a strong indicator that lots more work is being done. They also sometimes have a better sense of finishing a project. Not always, but sometimes.
-Dave Haynie
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1512306&cid=30785704
Utterly hilarious.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1512306&cid=30785704
Utterly hilarious, watching BitzTream run after being caught skimming like the typical troll does.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1512306&cid=30785704
Utterly hilarious, watching BitzTream run after being caught skimming like the typical troll does. I wouldn't do that again were I you BitZtream.
Yeah, don't even get me started on such "adult" software as VxWorks, where $30k will get you "oops, we released a version of our compiler and stdc library that didn't close a C namespace in a header, thereby breaking any C++ code you include it in." Stuff *beginners* would be chided for. Stuff that would have *easily* been caught by unit or regression tests, which scares me further still because it means they probably don't have them.
Here's a hint to all the FOSS haters: most FOSS is not developed by inexperienced "gee, let's see what I can do with a computer!" types, even the unpaid stuff. The large majority of FOSS (especially the large successful projects) is developed by people who develop software for a living. The only difference between them and other paid programmers is that instead of having a hobby like golf or fantasy football, they go home and work on software that scratches a personal itch (assuming they aren't getting paid to work on it already). Now, let's just think about this: which software would you trust more: something written by someone who is just there to punch the clock and spends his breaks thinking about Paris Hilton, or someone who loves making software so much they can't keep their hands off a keyboard for more than a few hours? You can scream "boring nerd with no life" all you want, but the simple fact that most FOSS developers are professional coders, added to the fact that they work on software more than other devs, plus the fact that they decided to share the fruits of (some) of their labors with the world puts their software head and shoulders above most "paycheck only" software.
BTW, many FOSS coders I know of have other hobbies (and families); it just seems like they are able to pack so much more into a day than most people, it amazes me. Maybe they code faster; they are, by definition good coders, otherwise I probably wouldn't have heard of them. Or maybe they just don't waste so much time on things like TV. But just jump on Planet Debian and you will find scuba divers, cyclists, hikers, runners, community activists, etc, etc . . .
Also, I'm not slagging _all_ non-FOSS coders (technically, I am currently one . . . ). It just seems that where the source isn't available, and people aren't scratching their own itches that software generally sucks more.
Nathan's blog
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1512306&cid=30785704 [slashdot.org]
Utterly hilarious - See BitzTream run after being caught skimming like the typical troll does. I wouldn't do that again were I you BitZtream.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1512306&cid=30785704
Utterly hilarious!
(See BitzTream run in the URL above, after he being caught skimming like the typical troll does).
Why are you so fucking stupid?
Nothing motivates people more than money. Good to see some are being paid for their efforts.
http://www.unboundhypnotherapy.com.au/ - Motivation For Life Impro
In my mind the anxiety about commercial interests in open source, and as by product the paying of developers, is not misplaced. Plenty of good things have been turned to shit once business was introduced. Anyone with half a brain can observed that the idea of capitalist competition spurring development is more the exception than the rule. Companies soon catch on that its easier to FUD, lie, distort, lock-in, lock-out, patent harass, sue etc etc than actually compete by developing better products in the spirit of capitalist competition theory. The more dominated by devious profit-is-king sell-your-mother-for-a-percentage minded capitalist stakeholders in the open source eco-system the more risk to open source from its toxic ideology ie Tivoisation, trusted computing, DRM, software patent.
Anxiety can be a good motivator but paranoia leads to disaster. It is observably true that, while not there at the start, capitalist institutions have pushed forward the quality and quantity of open source by pouring in the massive resources they have. However so far no death blow perversion to open source has been struck. So we must ask what would be the death blow? Specifically who knows but generally anything that effectively denies open source freedom! Its all about freedom, freedom, freedom! Capitalist agendas can and should be allowed to embrace open source but never at the risk of the core freedom loving ideas that birthed the movement. If one doesn't understand those fundamental freedoms that created the open source movement then of course one could easily play a part in killing the golden goose. The only thing that the open source 'community' needs to survive is a freedom loving pulse and, I'm sorry to say, capitalism isn't historically known for this and wage enslaved employees aren't, by definition, in a position to dictate policy.
To keep this analogy:
How long do you think that pile of shit remains, when a thousand eyes lay upon it, in comparison to the shit locked up in a closed box?
The Linux world makes much of its community roots, but when it comes to developing the kernel of the operating system, it's less a case of 'volunteers ahoy!' and more a case of 'where's my pay?'
What does the guy think how "the community" was paying for food and housing? Open source developers have always usually had mainstream computer-related jobs and done open source development as part of their paid job. The only thing that's changed is that over the last few years, open source development has changed from a part-time activity to a full time activity for many developers and that therefore their job titles have changed as well.
Two comments,
Firstly, I have been involved with OS kernel development for more than 35 years, and I can tell you that having 100+ employees working on the kernel means, in a Cathedral organized development is a disaster if 80% are NOT working as Tech Writers or Testers, See Fred Brooks book, which is as true today as it was when it was written.
Too many developers, with poor architecture and vision leads to CRAP, which Windoze, and its COM architecture is. Until COM is removed Windoze security will leak like a sieve, and backward compatibility, part of the lock-in, means that is VERY HARD for M$.
I do not count developers who only work on drivers, but poor divers kill your kernel, which is why the Bazzar model works much better, read LKML, it is brutal peer review.
As I told Scott McNealy in 1998, Open Solaris would not get traction until developer were helped to write good drivers, and while this is not the main reason why SUNs business model failed, poor focus, bad marketing and poor SPARC performance was, you have to have a good and wide driver portfolio.
Finally, if you havn't figured it out already, I don't like M$, Windoze or the crooks in charge of this convicted-anti-trust-monopoly, and if the US DOJ had any balls, 10 of the top execs would be in a Supermax.
Enjoy you Astroturf.
Okay, I'll bother to respond this time.
Nothing you posted anywhere in your previously retarded post proved your point, and no, you weren't doing anything before I was in highschool, and you are indeed still an idiot, even if you think your screensaver was special.
It wasn't, and you certainly weren't the first to copy the matrix for a screen saver.
And I'll continue to skim and troll till the cows come home Mr Anonymous Coward. I've got perfect karma, yet you won't bother to login to post, obviously I'm the one with the problem.
Next time you should threaten to come beat me up or something, they'd be cute.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager