7 ms·

Oracle is the #1 contributor to the core of Linux in 5.18

125 points by rascul 4y ago

mepian 4y ago
I wonder how many of the contributors in Oracle are Sun veterans.
- dimitrios1 4y ago
  Sun veterans have long cashed out and headed to greener pastures. The ones that are still coding are doing what they want, for whoever they want, for such is the market today for top tier programming skill.
  - mindentropy 4y ago
    What an absolute dream they are living. Apart from top tier programming skill it involves being extremely lucky.
Lutzb 4y ago
I cannot recreate the results > git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel /git/torvalds/linux.git/ > cd linux > git log --pretty=format:"%<(60,mtrunc)%ae %h %s (%ar)" -i --no-merges v5.17..v5.18 -- fs mm kernel | grep oracle.com | wc -l > 21
- mvdwoord 4y ago
  The article does not mention how the attribution to employer is done though...? Could it be that some Oracle employed contributors are using a different email when submitting pull requests?
  - dralley 4y ago
    Going by the numbers from https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ Intel is the top documented contributor to the overall kernel (as opposed to the "core" of the kernel, which is defined here has non-driver, non-architecture dependent code) with 11.4%, whereas Oracle has 2.2%. 7.7% are attributed to "unknown", 5.5% as "none", and 2.4% as "consultant". Almost 2/3 of that combined quantity would need to be attributed to Oracle in order to make up the gap, which seems unlikely. So the definition of "core" seems to be the key factor here. Intel, AMD, IBM, Huawei, Linaro and Red Hat contribute substantial amounts of architecture-dependent code and/or driver code which isn't counted in this metric.
    - remram 4y ago
      I can see removing drivers but taking out architecture-dependent code seems less justifiable. edit: Turns out most of their contributions to "the core of Linux" are to the XFS filesystem, so I take it back, this is all silly.
  - tych0 4y ago
    > Could it be that some Oracle employed contributors are using a different email when submitting pull requests? Yes, and if you contribute from an e-mail address that Greg K-H's scripts don't understand, you get an e-mail from him asking you to disclose your employer if you're willing. Some companies mandate you contribute from your corporate address, and it is impossible to contribute from some corporate e-mail accounts, since they don't allow SMTP access for use with git send-email. For example, my understanding is that this is the reason for the linux.ibm.com subdomain, though someone at IBM can probably elaborate. LWN's numbers are probably pretty close to accurate, as I think most people disclose. I haven't read TFA, but I guess Oracle is counting only commits to kernel/+fs/+net/ or something like that.
    - xbar 4y ago
      kernel/+fs/+mm : git log --pretty=format:"%<(60,mtrunc)%ae %h %s (%ar)" -i --no-merges v5.17..v5.18 -- fs mm kernel
rbanffy 4y ago
I wish Oracle didn't kill SPARC... I really like my Sun workstations.
- melling 4y ago
  I really wish Sun didn’t run itself into the ground. Hard to believe Oracle only paid $7.4 billion https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=...
  - gruturo 4y ago
    AMP-free link: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=1
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Not only that, Oracle was the only company willing to actually pay for Sun's assets. No one else saw any value in acquiring Sun (IBM was rather quick to withdraw their offer).
    - Grazester 4y ago
      I wonder if Google is looking back in hindsight saying they should have bought them given the headache and cost of Oracle vs Google Java fight and the fact that Google is also now dabbling a lot more in hardware and making and commissioning their own chips.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Most likely, thankfully they haven't done so. Looking at the mess Android Java is, and how great they are designing programming languages.
  - piokoch 4y ago
    Surprised? The company that was selling very specific hardware and at the same time created popular programming language that was multi-platform, so customers could use cheap Intel-based servers instead of that "very specific hardware" (that was also very expensive) to run this software. What could have gone wrong? The SUN tragedy was that it moved into service/support model too late, this move could not have saved them in the time-frame that all the investors wanted to see their money. For me, personally, it was very, very sad, as SUN people, including sales, marketing were very nice, willing to cooperate even with small companies, there was a lot of "feeling" of the company run by tech-aware people who did not care about counting every cent. SUN had a lot of really state of the art software for what support was selling pretty good, Glassfish server, Message Broker (one of the best on the market, really hard to beat) and many others... Still not enough money. I hoped for some other deal, like selling hardware part to Fujitsu and keep working on Software/Cloud, etc. but, as I said, greedy people wanted their money right away. Oracle had big hopes for suing Google and winning a lot cash. Business is hard, not always the good guy wins.
pella 4y ago
Most active 5.18 employers [1] - By changesets: Intel ( 11.4% ) ... Oracle ( 2.2% ) - By lines changed: AMD ( 39.9% ) [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ ---------------- Most active 5.17 employers: [2] - By changesets: Intel ( 11.6% ) ... Oracle ( 2.0%) - By lines changed: Intel ( 12.6% ) [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/887559/ https://lwn.net/Articles/887559/
- acatton 4y ago
  It looks like they're cheating the numbers by using the concept of "'core' of the kernel", whatever that means. > Oracle is the #1 contributor to the "core" of the kernel, in terms of number of changesets. While, I think most Intel and AMD contributions are very likely drivers related, it really feels like Oracle tried to find a statistic which fits their narrative. Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1122/ https://xkcd.com/1122/
  - pdhborges 4y ago
    To be honest I think the "core" distinction actually makes sense.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    “Core of the kernel” reads like we’re getting lost in nomenclature
    - nix23 4y ago
      Nucleus of Linux-Kernel ;)
      - nocman 4y ago
        Don't you mean "the Nucleus of the Core of the Kernel"? :-D
        nix23 4y ago
blibble 4y ago
> Counting commits or lines of code changed is a crude approximation of the activities of developers so we came up with our own instead that just co-incidentally happens to reveal that we're #1!
- marvinblum 4y ago
  And it still has this outdated mentality LoC = productivity.
mabbo 4y ago
... and therefore everyone using Linux owes us the following amounts of money...
exabrial 4y ago
Before everyone pisses all over this because it’s Oracle, I think the better first of action is to challenge other companies to step up and try to step up. Back in the day everyone used to whine incessantly about Sun Microsystems, despite being one of the most charitable contributers.
- causi 4y ago
  Before everyone pisses all over this because it’s Oracle Did you miss the part where Oracle is twisting the truth by redefining what "core" means? You're right in that Oracle being a bunch of fucktrumpets doesn't mean we should dismiss everything they say out of hand. It just means it doesn't take long to figure out that, yep, they're still fucktrumpets.
  - the_biot 4y ago
    Oh, I don't know. They've been like this for decades, at some point buying anything from Oracle, or believing anything they say, is just a laughable idea.
causi 4y ago
I know I've said this before, but we really need to add "being utter horseshit" to the list of reasons to flag a submission.
NelsonMinar 4y ago
What do Oracle employees tend to contribute to the Linux kernel?
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  From the article: "A large part of this burst in contributions came from Matthew Wilcox's large patchset establishing Page Folios; also arriving in 5.18 were a number of XFS and mm fixes, and we're contining to work towards building online filesystem check and repair for XFS."
  - remram 4y ago
    Drivers don't count but alternative filesystems do? XFS online check is "core of Linux"?
    - kodah 4y ago
      XFS is the default filesystem in RHEL
      - remram 4y ago
        And x86-64 is the only supported desktop architecture but apparently code written to support it doesn't count...
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      They included "fs mm kernel". No idea how representative that is for the "core of Linux", but it does (presumably) include all filesystems, and not just XFS.
rafaelturk 4y ago
This is really scary...
ianai 4y ago
Be picky all you like, but to a long timer like me it’s awesome to see companies contribute. I’d be personally fine with every contributor getting their own participation reward. Let them all get whatever (silly?) title they want out of it. Like news casters even.
macksd 4y ago
I must be missing something because even by the command in their own blogpost, I see more commits from redhat.com and google.com than oracle.com. And if I try to poke around myself for things like device-agnostic networking code (e.g. the IPv4 stack, multipart TCP, etc.) the disparity increase in Red Hat's favor.
Cyder 4y ago
Oracle, IBM, Microsoft... I'm starting to trust linux less.
- ajvs 4y ago
  Fortunately they're all in competition with each other so they can't subvert the kernel to their own ends.
zeruch 4y ago
This is one of the more abysmal attempts by Oracle to market using the most obfuscated, obtuse, oblique bit of orifice-hosing imaginable. Even on the off-chance they were the biggest contribs by lines of code, that is a stupid KPI to fixate on.
joanfihu 4y ago
Oracle trying to not look evil.

125 points by rascul 4y ago

mepian 4y ago

I wonder how many of the contributors in Oracle are Sun veterans.

dimitrios1 4y ago
Sun veterans have long cashed out and headed to greener pastures. The ones that are still coding are doing what they want, for whoever they want, for such is the market today for top tier programming skill.
- mindentropy 4y ago
  What an absolute dream they are living. Apart from top tier programming skill it involves being extremely lucky.

Lutzb 4y ago

I cannot recreate the results > git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel /git/torvalds/linux.git/ > cd linux > git log --pretty=format:"%<(60,mtrunc)%ae %h %s (%ar)" -i --no-merges v5.17..v5.18 -- fs mm kernel | grep oracle.com | wc -l > 21

mvdwoord 4y ago
The article does not mention how the attribution to employer is done though...? Could it be that some Oracle employed contributors are using a different email when submitting pull requests?
- dralley 4y ago
  Going by the numbers from https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ Intel is the top documented contributor to the overall kernel (as opposed to the "core" of the kernel, which is defined here has non-driver, non-architecture dependent code) with 11.4%, whereas Oracle has 2.2%. 7.7% are attributed to "unknown", 5.5% as "none", and 2.4% as "consultant". Almost 2/3 of that combined quantity would need to be attributed to Oracle in order to make up the gap, which seems unlikely. So the definition of "core" seems to be the key factor here. Intel, AMD, IBM, Huawei, Linaro and Red Hat contribute substantial amounts of architecture-dependent code and/or driver code which isn't counted in this metric.
  - remram 4y ago
    I can see removing drivers but taking out architecture-dependent code seems less justifiable. edit: Turns out most of their contributions to "the core of Linux" are to the XFS filesystem, so I take it back, this is all silly.
- tych0 4y ago
  > Could it be that some Oracle employed contributors are using a different email when submitting pull requests? Yes, and if you contribute from an e-mail address that Greg K-H's scripts don't understand, you get an e-mail from him asking you to disclose your employer if you're willing. Some companies mandate you contribute from your corporate address, and it is impossible to contribute from some corporate e-mail accounts, since they don't allow SMTP access for use with git send-email. For example, my understanding is that this is the reason for the linux.ibm.com subdomain, though someone at IBM can probably elaborate. LWN's numbers are probably pretty close to accurate, as I think most people disclose. I haven't read TFA, but I guess Oracle is counting only commits to kernel/+fs/+net/ or something like that.
  - xbar 4y ago
    kernel/+fs/+mm : git log --pretty=format:"%<(60,mtrunc)%ae %h %s (%ar)" -i --no-merges v5.17..v5.18 -- fs mm kernel

rbanffy 4y ago

I wish Oracle didn't kill SPARC... I really like my Sun workstations.

melling 4y ago
I really wish Sun didn’t run itself into the ground. Hard to believe Oracle only paid $7.4 billion https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=...
- gruturo 4y ago
  AMP-free link: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=1 https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=7395780&page=1
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Not only that, Oracle was the only company willing to actually pay for Sun's assets. No one else saw any value in acquiring Sun (IBM was rather quick to withdraw their offer).
  - Grazester 4y ago
    I wonder if Google is looking back in hindsight saying they should have bought them given the headache and cost of Oracle vs Google Java fight and the fact that Google is also now dabbling a lot more in hardware and making and commissioning their own chips.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Most likely, thankfully they haven't done so. Looking at the mess Android Java is, and how great they are designing programming languages.
- piokoch 4y ago
  Surprised? The company that was selling very specific hardware and at the same time created popular programming language that was multi-platform, so customers could use cheap Intel-based servers instead of that "very specific hardware" (that was also very expensive) to run this software. What could have gone wrong? The SUN tragedy was that it moved into service/support model too late, this move could not have saved them in the time-frame that all the investors wanted to see their money. For me, personally, it was very, very sad, as SUN people, including sales, marketing were very nice, willing to cooperate even with small companies, there was a lot of "feeling" of the company run by tech-aware people who did not care about counting every cent. SUN had a lot of really state of the art software for what support was selling pretty good, Glassfish server, Message Broker (one of the best on the market, really hard to beat) and many others... Still not enough money. I hoped for some other deal, like selling hardware part to Fujitsu and keep working on Software/Cloud, etc. but, as I said, greedy people wanted their money right away. Oracle had big hopes for suing Google and winning a lot cash. Business is hard, not always the good guy wins.

pella 4y ago

Most active 5.18 employers [1] - By changesets: Intel ( 11.4% ) ... Oracle ( 2.2% ) - By lines changed: AMD ( 39.9% ) [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ https://lwn.net/Articles/895800/ ---------------- Most active 5.17 employers: [2] - By changesets: Intel ( 11.6% ) ... Oracle ( 2.0%) - By lines changed: Intel ( 12.6% ) [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/887559/ https://lwn.net/Articles/887559/

acatton 4y ago
It looks like they're cheating the numbers by using the concept of "'core' of the kernel", whatever that means. > Oracle is the #1 contributor to the "core" of the kernel, in terms of number of changesets. While, I think most Intel and AMD contributions are very likely drivers related, it really feels like Oracle tried to find a statistic which fits their narrative. Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1122/ https://xkcd.com/1122/
- pdhborges 4y ago
  To be honest I think the "core" distinction actually makes sense.
- tambourine_man 4y ago
  “Core of the kernel” reads like we’re getting lost in nomenclature
  - nix23 4y ago
    Nucleus of Linux-Kernel ;)
    - nocman 4y ago
      Don't you mean "the Nucleus of the Core of the Kernel"? :-D
      - nix23 4y ago

blibble 4y ago

> Counting commits or lines of code changed is a crude approximation of the activities of developers so we came up with our own instead that just co-incidentally happens to reveal that we're #1!

marvinblum 4y ago
And it still has this outdated mentality LoC = productivity.

mabbo 4y ago

... and therefore everyone using Linux owes us the following amounts of money...

exabrial 4y ago

Before everyone pisses all over this because it’s Oracle, I think the better first of action is to challenge other companies to step up and try to step up. Back in the day everyone used to whine incessantly about Sun Microsystems, despite being one of the most charitable contributers.

causi 4y ago
Before everyone pisses all over this because it’s Oracle Did you miss the part where Oracle is twisting the truth by redefining what "core" means? You're right in that Oracle being a bunch of fucktrumpets doesn't mean we should dismiss everything they say out of hand. It just means it doesn't take long to figure out that, yep, they're still fucktrumpets.
- the_biot 4y ago
  Oh, I don't know. They've been like this for decades, at some point buying anything from Oracle, or believing anything they say, is just a laughable idea.

causi 4y ago

I know I've said this before, but we really need to add "being utter horseshit" to the list of reasons to flag a submission.

NelsonMinar 4y ago

What do Oracle employees tend to contribute to the Linux kernel?

Beltalowda 4y ago
From the article: "A large part of this burst in contributions came from Matthew Wilcox's large patchset establishing Page Folios; also arriving in 5.18 were a number of XFS and mm fixes, and we're contining to work towards building online filesystem check and repair for XFS."
- remram 4y ago
  Drivers don't count but alternative filesystems do? XFS online check is "core of Linux"?
  - kodah 4y ago
    XFS is the default filesystem in RHEL
    - remram 4y ago
      And x86-64 is the only supported desktop architecture but apparently code written to support it doesn't count...
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    They included "fs mm kernel". No idea how representative that is for the "core of Linux", but it does (presumably) include all filesystems, and not just XFS.

rafaelturk 4y ago

This is really scary...

ianai 4y ago

Be picky all you like, but to a long timer like me it’s awesome to see companies contribute. I’d be personally fine with every contributor getting their own participation reward. Let them all get whatever (silly?) title they want out of it. Like news casters even.

macksd 4y ago

I must be missing something because even by the command in their own blogpost, I see more commits from redhat.com and google.com than oracle.com. And if I try to poke around myself for things like device-agnostic networking code (e.g. the IPv4 stack, multipart TCP, etc.) the disparity increase in Red Hat's favor.

Cyder 4y ago

Oracle, IBM, Microsoft... I'm starting to trust linux less.

ajvs 4y ago
Fortunately they're all in competition with each other so they can't subvert the kernel to their own ends.

zeruch 4y ago

This is one of the more abysmal attempts by Oracle to market using the most obfuscated, obtuse, oblique bit of orifice-hosing imaginable. Even on the off-chance they were the biggest contribs by lines of code, that is a stupid KPI to fixate on.

joanfihu 4y ago

Oracle trying to not look evil.