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>2b) Even without the same resources, the main Linux kernel has an enormous number of top-talent developers working for free. This is a serious economic advanta

by Edmond 13y ago

>2b) Even without the same resources, the main Linux kernel has an enormous number of top-talent developers working for free. This is a serious economic advantage over traditional closed source companies. I am not familiar with the actual org structure of Linux kernel contributors besides Linus being the leader but isn't it the case that most of the major contributors are in fact employed by companies (including Red Hat)? In other words not devoting their time working for free...or am I off?

adwf 13y ago
For RedHat it's free. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google-and-samsung-soar-into-list-of-top-10-linux-contributors/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google... If 10% are paid by RedHat, 90% aren't - therefore count as free to RedHat. Even then, the single largest group are non-aligned developers.
- Edmond 13y ago
  I agree Red Hat and pretty much every other contributor's result is a net gain. The point I was making is that the overall contribution isn't free. ie the folks working on it are paid by various companies. I believe all the major tech companies have a few devs that they basically loan out to the kernel development effort.
  - adwf 13y ago
    Yes, there's potential for a Tragedy of the Commons style problem to happen with kernel development, where each corporate developer suddenly decides to save money and not contribute, whilst letting everyone else pay. Eventually everyone would follow suit and nothing would get done. Not exactly the same as the Tragedy of the Commons, but similar in the sense that it works best when everyone works together. NB: It's also important to note that some kernel work is actually on drivers for specific products. eg. Intel's contributions are largely making sure that all their hardware will work in a Linux server/desktop, not necessarily the kind of general Linux ecosystem development that Canonical might do.
    - gizmo686 13y ago
      I don't see the tragedy of the commons concern here. Presumably, each company is contributing because they need/want something with the kernel that is not already being provided. Instead of keeping the development in house, which would involve maintaining a fork and almost certainty breaking copyright, they decide to contribute it back to the mainline kernel. At the point where no one wants to contribute, I would expect that the expected value for some companies of having a single employee work on the kernel is greater than the That this happens to benifit everyone else is just a side effect.
cwyers 13y ago
Many of the kernel developers are paid for their efforts by somebody, yes. Red Hat is the top single corporate employer, but their contributions are roughly 12%: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/sites/main/files/publications/whowriteslinux.pdf http://www.linuxfoundation.org/sites/main/files/publications... From Red Hat's point of view, even though someone else is typically paying for the effort, code that's not from their developers is "free." (Well, Red Hat is also one of the top reviewers, so they're paying people to review the contributions of others, too. So it's a bit more complicated than that.) Now, some of the companies on that list are in the same business as Red Hat (and some companies are in the same business but don't contribute significantly to the kernel, like Canonical). But many of them are in very different lines of business and view the Linux kernel as either a complement (that's why Intel is involved, for instance -- encouraging free operating systems to sell processors) or as an infrastructure piece for their products (yo, Google). So Red Hat is able to leverage the efforts of those companies to deliver a product for far, far fewer man hours than it would cost if they did all the work themselves.
CameronNemo 13y ago
Most contributions are from volunteers, but I do not know about contributors. I assume volunteering contributors are even more, because they are sort of the fly by crew.
- Edmond 13y ago
  Not sure of that...I may be wrong but I believe there is a karma type process in place for instance regarding who can contribute patches...I can't imagine there is much fly-by-night contribution...except perhaps bug reporting.
pedrocr 13y ago
RedHat contributes ~10% of total development: https://lwn.net/Articles/451243/ https://lwn.net/Articles/451243/ so from the point of view of RedHat a large part of kernel development is actually free. Not actually 90% though since they don't care about all changes. Getting unrelated and often competing companies to cooperate in creating the infrastructure layer of software is a huge success case of open source.

by Edmond 13y ago

adwf 13y ago

For RedHat it's free. http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google-and-samsung-soar-into-list-of-top-10-linux-contributors/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/google... If 10% are paid by RedHat, 90% aren't - therefore count as free to RedHat. Even then, the single largest group are non-aligned developers.

Edmond 13y ago
I agree Red Hat and pretty much every other contributor's result is a net gain. The point I was making is that the overall contribution isn't free. ie the folks working on it are paid by various companies. I believe all the major tech companies have a few devs that they basically loan out to the kernel development effort.
- adwf 13y ago
  Yes, there's potential for a Tragedy of the Commons style problem to happen with kernel development, where each corporate developer suddenly decides to save money and not contribute, whilst letting everyone else pay. Eventually everyone would follow suit and nothing would get done. Not exactly the same as the Tragedy of the Commons, but similar in the sense that it works best when everyone works together. NB: It's also important to note that some kernel work is actually on drivers for specific products. eg. Intel's contributions are largely making sure that all their hardware will work in a Linux server/desktop, not necessarily the kind of general Linux ecosystem development that Canonical might do.
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    I don't see the tragedy of the commons concern here. Presumably, each company is contributing because they need/want something with the kernel that is not already being provided. Instead of keeping the development in house, which would involve maintaining a fork and almost certainty breaking copyright, they decide to contribute it back to the mainline kernel. At the point where no one wants to contribute, I would expect that the expected value for some companies of having a single employee work on the kernel is greater than the That this happens to benifit everyone else is just a side effect.

cwyers 13y ago

Many of the kernel developers are paid for their efforts by somebody, yes. Red Hat is the top single corporate employer, but their contributions are roughly 12%: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/sites/main/files/publications/whowriteslinux.pdf http://www.linuxfoundation.org/sites/main/files/publications... From Red Hat's point of view, even though someone else is typically paying for the effort, code that's not from their developers is "free." (Well, Red Hat is also one of the top reviewers, so they're paying people to review the contributions of others, too. So it's a bit more complicated than that.) Now, some of the companies on that list are in the same business as Red Hat (and some companies are in the same business but don't contribute significantly to the kernel, like Canonical). But many of them are in very different lines of business and view the Linux kernel as either a complement (that's why Intel is involved, for instance -- encouraging free operating systems to sell processors) or as an infrastructure piece for their products (yo, Google). So Red Hat is able to leverage the efforts of those companies to deliver a product for far, far fewer man hours than it would cost if they did all the work themselves.

CameronNemo 13y ago

Most contributions are from volunteers, but I do not know about contributors. I assume volunteering contributors are even more, because they are sort of the fly by crew.

Edmond 13y ago
Not sure of that...I may be wrong but I believe there is a karma type process in place for instance regarding who can contribute patches...I can't imagine there is much fly-by-night contribution...except perhaps bug reporting.

pedrocr 13y ago

RedHat contributes ~10% of total development: https://lwn.net/Articles/451243/ https://lwn.net/Articles/451243/ so from the point of view of RedHat a large part of kernel development is actually free. Not actually 90% though since they don't care about all changes. Getting unrelated and often competing companies to cooperate in creating the infrastructure layer of software is a huge success case of open source.