13 ms·

Google and Samsung soar into list of top 10 Linux contributors

139 points by fdm 13y ago

devx 13y ago
Can't wait for Google to replace ext4 with F2FS by default in Android. It offers significant speed improvement (~50 percent faster, or even 2x faster in some cases I think). There are a lot of performance improvements built into the new Linux kernels, too, along with 64-bit ARMv8 support, so those will be very welcome, too, if they arrive in Android 4.4.
- jordanthoms 13y ago
  It's pretty crazy for a Samsung filesystem to be actually good, considering their history with RFS...
  - ihsw 13y ago
    Well take a look what F2FS stands for: Flash-Friendly File System. It's designed around living on disks that aren't platters of spinning rust. Few companies can call themselves an authority on NAND flash memory and Samsung is definitely at the top of that list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F2FS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F2FS
    - jrockway 13y ago
      I think people on this site consider Samsung to be "that company that invented that gimicky feature that pauses videos when you look away" and not "the company that makes pretty much every flash memory chip or LCD in existence".
      - yareally 13y ago
        Also nearly AMOLED in existence on a consumer device.
    - josteink 13y ago
      The point was that Samsung, despite what you mentioned, put out phones like the Samsung Galaxy S1 with their own home-made filesystems RFS. The performance of RFS once the filesystem became somewhat populated was horrible and was the one single bottleneck for every single operation on the phone. It made otherwise top-end hardware (for the time) unbearably slow, bordering on useless. Think 10 seconds lag to go back from an email to the email-listing. Those were real delays. Real problems. Caused by RFS. I have personally experienced people thank me for giving them "a completely new phone" (quote end) when I rooted the phones and converted all RFS-partitions to EXT4. All those problems went away and you finally got the phone you thought you bought in the first place. Given this, touching any filesystem by Samsung is something I will give serious second thoughts. To give Samsung credit, they ditched RFS entirely for their second line of Galaxy S phones. The Galaxy S2 used standard Linux filesystems and RFS has yet to resurface anywhere near civilized folks.
- Recoil42 13y ago
  This is the first I've heard of F2FS. Are there any good introduction-type writeups for it anywhere? How far is it from production?
  - amboar 13y ago
    Here is a technical overview: https://lwn.net/Articles/518988/ https://lwn.net/Articles/518988/
- sciwiz 13y ago
  Moto X uses F2FS. "The Moto X’s pseudo-stock Android 4.2.2 uses ext4 for all partitions with the exception of user data storage, which uses F2FS (Flash Friendly File System)" http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/9 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/9
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Can't wait for Google to replace ext4 with F2FS by default in Android. It offers significant speed improvement (~50 percent faster, or even 2x faster in some cases I think). And why can't you wait? What will that buy you? Do you have a read/write heavy workflow with Android?
chatman 13y ago
Redhat is at the top, Canonical nowhere to be found.
- memset 13y ago
  In fact, the article addresses your point directly: Canonical contributed 548 changes in the period studied in today's report and would have cracked the top 30 if the foundation hadn't included "none" and "unknown" in the rankings. The maker of Ubuntu has been criticized for years for not contributing more to the kernel (and recently clashed with Intel over patches submitted to the company's graphics driver), but Zemlin [Linux Foundation Executive Director] isn't upset. "I am not at all mad at them. I think they do good work," he said. "You just kind of choose what's important to your org and where you can add the most value to the project and how it intersects with your business. They choose to focus a lot of their time and energy at higher levels of the software stack."
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  Actually unaffiliated programmers are at the top. Canonical's contribution is more to the desktop and OS itself than to the kernel. The majority of desktop installations are either Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based, and Ubuntu is quickly becoming the server of choice as well. Ubuntu is leading GNU/Linux adoption worldwide, which in itself is a huge contribution to the ecosystem, as it gets more programmers interested in various open source projects.
  - matthewdavis 13y ago
    > Ubuntu is quickly becoming the server of choice as well Source?
    - Mikeb85 13y ago
      http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/is-ubuntu-becoming-a-big-name-in-enterprise-linux-servers/10602 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/is-ubuntu-becoming-a-b... A quick Google search will produce this information. Furthermore, I think a survey of new server deployments would be even more in Ubuntu's favour, though gathering such information is no doubt difficult. In the article it does mention that Ubuntu is the most popular distro for Amazon deployments...
RamiK 13y ago
Is there a break down of what get's worked on by whom? Would be interesting to see what the hardware manufacturers are doing other than their own drivers. Probably fairer to if we're counting LOC...
- jlarocco 13y ago
  Why would hardware manufacturers do anything other than their drivers? They don't even have to contribute drivers, they certainly shouldn't be expected to go above and beyond that.
- gugol 13y ago
  The article says that briefly. Didn't you read it?
fauigerzigerk 13y ago
Seeing so many chip makers up there on the list makes me wonder about the state of Linux drivers. Why is it that Android and Chrome OS and Windows can make drivers actually work, but Linux on laptops will still predictably run hot and drain the battery like crazy?
- Pxtl 13y ago
  Because the hardware and OS companies are working together on this, and the hardware doesn't ship until it works in its target OS. In Linux, volunteers are poking around blindly tryign to get the hardware to do what they ask while the hardware vendor has all the information and isn't sharing it.
  - fauigerzigerk 13y ago
    That's what I used to think but now that I see that there are that many chip makers contributing I'm starting to wonder. But it's probably as varikin says, they're working on different kinds of drivers.
    - yareally 13y ago
      Much of the hardware for the higher end Android devices is composed of stuff from a handful of OEMs, so that also helps. Also many of the devices that come out around the same time are using at least some identical components. SoCs are all mostly Qualcomm or Samsung, radio chipsets are mostly Qualcomm, LCDs are Sony/Samsung/Sharp/LG and a few others, AMOLED are all Samsung as far as I know, GPUs are mostly Qualcomm/PowerVR/Nvidia. Much of the time, the Android modding community ports newer versions of Android to other devices simply by hoping some OEM releases a newer version of Android for another device that happens to have some identical hardware component so they can either drop that particular driver into the other device or tweak it a bit. Porting the OS is never really the problem. The problems generally lie in outdated proprietary drivers no longer working with the newer version of Android (Camera/Bluetooth/Radio/sometimes GPU are the most likely candidates to break).
- varikin 13y ago
RyanMcGreal 13y ago
> Linus Torvalds' creation has expended [sic] to 17 million lines of code. Not to worry: the same code can get used over and over without being consumed.
- frozenport 13y ago
  Also drivers, which for example, aren't part of the Windows source.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
educating 13y ago
I'm glad Linus and many others are reviewing Kernel changes still, but how long will it be before there is nothing stopping massive corporations from deciding what can be changed? And even with all of the experienced eyes, there have to be changes that have crept in that they didn't realize could be misused, and may still not know. I appreciate that corporations are the biggest donators, and that is extremely important, but is there any point in which we say, "Get your own project?"
- tjohns 13y ago
  Would you prefer hardware manufacturers not to contribute drivers? And that these companies fork the kernel without providing anything back? That's not very much in the spirit of openness. (Regardless, I'm not even sure how number of contributions would make any contributor "unstoppable".)
briandh 13y ago
> More good news is that the "longstanding squabble over Android-specific kernel features has faded completely into the background," the report said. "The much discussed 'wakelocks' [power management] feature has been quietly replaced by a different mainline solution which is used in the latest Android devices." Can someone in the know say what this replacement is?
benmccann 13y ago
I'm surprised a company making engraving machines is in the top ten.
simula67 13y ago
Microsoft open sourced Hyper V drivers because they were in violation of the GPL ( http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/pigs-are-flying-low-why-microsoft-open-sourced-its-linux-drivers/3433 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/pigs-are-flying-low-why-... ). They just made the most of it afterwards.

139 points by fdm 13y ago

devx 13y ago

Can't wait for Google to replace ext4 with F2FS by default in Android. It offers significant speed improvement (~50 percent faster, or even 2x faster in some cases I think). There are a lot of performance improvements built into the new Linux kernels, too, along with 64-bit ARMv8 support, so those will be very welcome, too, if they arrive in Android 4.4.

jordanthoms 13y ago
It's pretty crazy for a Samsung filesystem to be actually good, considering their history with RFS...
- ihsw 13y ago
  Well take a look what F2FS stands for: Flash-Friendly File System. It's designed around living on disks that aren't platters of spinning rust. Few companies can call themselves an authority on NAND flash memory and Samsung is definitely at the top of that list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F2FS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F2FS
  - jrockway 13y ago
    I think people on this site consider Samsung to be "that company that invented that gimicky feature that pauses videos when you look away" and not "the company that makes pretty much every flash memory chip or LCD in existence".
    - yareally 13y ago
      Also nearly AMOLED in existence on a consumer device.
  - josteink 13y ago
    The point was that Samsung, despite what you mentioned, put out phones like the Samsung Galaxy S1 with their own home-made filesystems RFS. The performance of RFS once the filesystem became somewhat populated was horrible and was the one single bottleneck for every single operation on the phone. It made otherwise top-end hardware (for the time) unbearably slow, bordering on useless. Think 10 seconds lag to go back from an email to the email-listing. Those were real delays. Real problems. Caused by RFS. I have personally experienced people thank me for giving them "a completely new phone" (quote end) when I rooted the phones and converted all RFS-partitions to EXT4. All those problems went away and you finally got the phone you thought you bought in the first place. Given this, touching any filesystem by Samsung is something I will give serious second thoughts. To give Samsung credit, they ditched RFS entirely for their second line of Galaxy S phones. The Galaxy S2 used standard Linux filesystems and RFS has yet to resurface anywhere near civilized folks.
Recoil42 13y ago
This is the first I've heard of F2FS. Are there any good introduction-type writeups for it anywhere? How far is it from production?
- amboar 13y ago
  Here is a technical overview: https://lwn.net/Articles/518988/ https://lwn.net/Articles/518988/
sciwiz 13y ago
Moto X uses F2FS. "The Moto X’s pseudo-stock Android 4.2.2 uses ext4 for all partitions with the exception of user data storage, which uses F2FS (Flash Friendly File System)" http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/9 http://www.anandtech.com/show/7235/moto-x-review/9
coldtea 13y ago
>Can't wait for Google to replace ext4 with F2FS by default in Android. It offers significant speed improvement (~50 percent faster, or even 2x faster in some cases I think). And why can't you wait? What will that buy you? Do you have a read/write heavy workflow with Android?

chatman 13y ago

Redhat is at the top, Canonical nowhere to be found.

memset 13y ago
In fact, the article addresses your point directly: Canonical contributed 548 changes in the period studied in today's report and would have cracked the top 30 if the foundation hadn't included "none" and "unknown" in the rankings. The maker of Ubuntu has been criticized for years for not contributing more to the kernel (and recently clashed with Intel over patches submitted to the company's graphics driver), but Zemlin [Linux Foundation Executive Director] isn't upset. "I am not at all mad at them. I think they do good work," he said. "You just kind of choose what's important to your org and where you can add the most value to the project and how it intersects with your business. They choose to focus a lot of their time and energy at higher levels of the software stack."
Mikeb85 13y ago
Actually unaffiliated programmers are at the top. Canonical's contribution is more to the desktop and OS itself than to the kernel. The majority of desktop installations are either Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based, and Ubuntu is quickly becoming the server of choice as well. Ubuntu is leading GNU/Linux adoption worldwide, which in itself is a huge contribution to the ecosystem, as it gets more programmers interested in various open source projects.
- matthewdavis 13y ago
  > Ubuntu is quickly becoming the server of choice as well Source?
  - Mikeb85 13y ago
    http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/is-ubuntu-becoming-a-big-name-in-enterprise-linux-servers/10602 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/is-ubuntu-becoming-a-b... A quick Google search will produce this information. Furthermore, I think a survey of new server deployments would be even more in Ubuntu's favour, though gathering such information is no doubt difficult. In the article it does mention that Ubuntu is the most popular distro for Amazon deployments...

RamiK 13y ago

Is there a break down of what get's worked on by whom? Would be interesting to see what the hardware manufacturers are doing other than their own drivers. Probably fairer to if we're counting LOC...

jlarocco 13y ago
Why would hardware manufacturers do anything other than their drivers? They don't even have to contribute drivers, they certainly shouldn't be expected to go above and beyond that.
gugol 13y ago
The article says that briefly. Didn't you read it?

fauigerzigerk 13y ago

Seeing so many chip makers up there on the list makes me wonder about the state of Linux drivers. Why is it that Android and Chrome OS and Windows can make drivers actually work, but Linux on laptops will still predictably run hot and drain the battery like crazy?

Pxtl 13y ago
Because the hardware and OS companies are working together on this, and the hardware doesn't ship until it works in its target OS. In Linux, volunteers are poking around blindly tryign to get the hardware to do what they ask while the hardware vendor has all the information and isn't sharing it.
- fauigerzigerk 13y ago
  That's what I used to think but now that I see that there are that many chip makers contributing I'm starting to wonder. But it's probably as varikin says, they're working on different kinds of drivers.
  - yareally 13y ago
    Much of the hardware for the higher end Android devices is composed of stuff from a handful of OEMs, so that also helps. Also many of the devices that come out around the same time are using at least some identical components. SoCs are all mostly Qualcomm or Samsung, radio chipsets are mostly Qualcomm, LCDs are Sony/Samsung/Sharp/LG and a few others, AMOLED are all Samsung as far as I know, GPUs are mostly Qualcomm/PowerVR/Nvidia. Much of the time, the Android modding community ports newer versions of Android to other devices simply by hoping some OEM releases a newer version of Android for another device that happens to have some identical hardware component so they can either drop that particular driver into the other device or tweak it a bit. Porting the OS is never really the problem. The problems generally lie in outdated proprietary drivers no longer working with the newer version of Android (Camera/Bluetooth/Radio/sometimes GPU are the most likely candidates to break).
varikin 13y ago

RyanMcGreal 13y ago

> Linus Torvalds' creation has expended [sic] to 17 million lines of code. Not to worry: the same code can get used over and over without being consumed.

frozenport 13y ago
Also drivers, which for example, aren't part of the Windows source.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

educating 13y ago

I'm glad Linus and many others are reviewing Kernel changes still, but how long will it be before there is nothing stopping massive corporations from deciding what can be changed? And even with all of the experienced eyes, there have to be changes that have crept in that they didn't realize could be misused, and may still not know. I appreciate that corporations are the biggest donators, and that is extremely important, but is there any point in which we say, "Get your own project?"

tjohns 13y ago
Would you prefer hardware manufacturers not to contribute drivers? And that these companies fork the kernel without providing anything back? That's not very much in the spirit of openness. (Regardless, I'm not even sure how number of contributions would make any contributor "unstoppable".)

briandh 13y ago

> More good news is that the "longstanding squabble over Android-specific kernel features has faded completely into the background," the report said. "The much discussed 'wakelocks' [power management] feature has been quietly replaced by a different mainline solution which is used in the latest Android devices." Can someone in the know say what this replacement is?

benmccann 13y ago

I'm surprised a company making engraving machines is in the top ten.

simula67 13y ago

Microsoft open sourced Hyper V drivers because they were in violation of the GPL ( http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/pigs-are-flying-low-why-microsoft-open-sourced-its-linux-drivers/3433 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/pigs-are-flying-low-why-... ). They just made the most of it afterwards.