Who Wrote, and Paid For, 2.6.20 238
Corbet writes "LWN.net did some data mining through the kernel source repository and put together an analysis of where the patches came from. It turns out that most kernel code is contributed by people paid to do the work — but the list of companies sponsoring kernel development has a surprise or two." The article's conclusion: "The end result of all this is that a number of the widely-expressed opinions about kernel development turn out to be true. There really are thousands of developers — at least, almost 2,000 who put in at least one patch over the course of the last year. Linus Torvalds is directly responsible for a very small portion of the code which makes it into the kernel. Contemporary kernel development is spread out among a broad group of people, most of whom are paid for the work they do. Overall, the picture is of a broad-based and well-supported development community."
I find it intriguing ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Broadcom (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fairly Interesting Overview (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact if you go to their home page you will see them right on the front page and yes they run Linux.
People want to run Linux on their servers and HPC clusters. If you want to sell servers and HPC clusters that run Linux you better make sure that Linux supports all the cool stuff that sets you apart from a bunch of Intel white boxes.
The fastest way to do that is to write it yourself.
Re:Fairly Interesting Overview (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:BDFL (Score:3, Interesting)
Linus takes a different approach, and has said that the releases are "Linus's tree", and if you are unhappy with it, you are welcome to release your own! His approach is a little less tightly controlled than that of BDFL.
Re:SCO? (Score:4, Interesting)
Knowledge is power -- knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley
Re:BDFL (Score:5, Interesting)
Incidentally, why is this supposed to be news - I thought that any one who knew anything about open source knew this, and that only stupid journalists get it wrong [pietersz.co.uk]
Re:Define "volunteer." (Score:2, Interesting)
Certainly one can lump every part of a set into another set if you broaden the definition of the container. So, if you equate a corporate agenda with a volunteer's agenda then yes, the same argument applies.
I believe that part of the distinction between volunteers and paid workers is the distinction between agendas. Part of a corporate agenda is mandating someone at your company do X,Y and Z. Even if they want to do the work, they are not volunteering to do it - there is no altruism involved, although enlightened self interest (both on behalf of the corp and the individual) certainly isn't beyond the pale.
The question you seem to be posing in a roundabout way is why are individuals considered volunteers while corporate employees not so considered?
The corporate agenda, as everyone here well knows, is to make a profit. By contributing to open source projects, they hope to make more money than if they did not do so. In no way does this fit the spirit of the word "volunteer". In fact, if that were the case, every company is "volunteering" the time of their employees to produce the goods and services they sell. Not only is this wrong, but it cheapens the use of the word.
Re:Define "volunteer." (Score:3, Interesting)
This disdain seems especially ironic these days, now that the capitalist West is proving that it can produce gulags and a 1984 surveillance society much more efficiently than the those nasty old Soviets. 8^)
There is one thing missing from the picture. Before you can call it a socialist system, you'd need to demonstrate that a command economy is possible. It is in certain projects, but not in any consistent way. I think the term we might be searching for is 'communalism' - that is, a form of self-organising collectivism that is found in most small villages.
Anarchy doesn't really come into it as much as some might think. Once involved in a community, people often develop very strong obligations and commitment, which makes it hard to float about in the FOSS world and participate arbitrarily. Likewise, there are often barriers to entry in many development communities. You can't just toss a patch into the main trunk without having first established your credibility and, often enough, having demonstrated your commitment to the ongoing development of the project. This kind of moral suasion isn't contradictory to anarchism, but it encourages something different.
This, interestingly, is why I think that FOSS in the developing world doesn't need to be 'explained' (i.e. defended) the way it usually does in North America and Western Europe. FOSS' organising principles are self-evident in many parts of the world.
Re:No Real Surprises (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:SCO? (Score:3, Interesting)
So losing that power really is a good thing.
Re:Define "volunteer." (Score:3, Interesting)
Before you can call it a socialist system, you'd need to demonstrate that a command economy is possible.
Socialism, properly so called, does not involve a command economy. Read up a little on Marx and Engels' positions (particularly Engels) and you'll find they actually claim that once socialism is correctly implemented and entrenched the State will wither away because it will have no purpose - that there will be no reason to have an all-encompassing power to make rules for people. Stated that simply it sounds absurd, but the reasoning is quite complex and it would be a mistake to conclude from this brief summary that it's a load of BS - read some of their work and then some of more recent jurisprudential scholars and then you can conclude (if you still think so) that it's BS.
Real socialists actually do look at the open source movement and say "see, this is what we have been talking about the whole time, it can work." One of Australia's most prominent socialists has said this to me in so many words. Nobody is forcing open source developers to do what they do, but open source does closely model what Marx and Engels believed would eventually happen to society as a whole.