4 ms·

If you read the commit messages you will often see a "Sponsored by:" line, and it's not uncommon to see those companies referenced, so they are supporting FreeB

by swills 12y ago

If you read the commit messages you will often see a "Sponsored by:" line, and it's not uncommon to see those companies referenced, so they are supporting FreeBSD, just in the form of developer time. And I believe they also donate to the foundation as well.

tiffanyh 12y ago
I'll bite. Core FreeBSD has 272,082 commits [1] Of those, only 9,244 commits [2] have the word "Sponsored" in their commit message; however, 3,486 were sponsored by "The FreeBSD Foundation" [3]. So only a net total of 5,758 commits were company sponsored. Said another way, that means just 2.1% of all commits ever made to FreeBSD, in it's 21 year existence, were companies sponsoring and submitting patches. So no, I think it's safe to say that FreeBSD is primarily run and operated by lone individuals who do it because they personally love FreeBSD. Edit: typo, fixed stats. [1] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q= https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q= [2] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored [3] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=%22The+FreeBSD+Foundation%22 https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=%22The+FreeBSD+Foundati...
- justincormack 12y ago
  I don't think thats entirely fair, I don't think anyone obliges you to add "Sponsored" and I would expect the figure is higher than that.
- pyre 12y ago
  > That means just 3.4% of all commits ever made to FreeBSD, in it's 21 year existence, were companies sponsoring and submitting patches. I understand your point, but all commits are not created equal. Some commits could be immensely 'more important' than others.
- cperciva 12y ago
  Until a few years ago the "Sponsored" keyword was never used. And as justincormack mentioned, lots of commits are simply not marked as such.
  - tiffanyh 12y ago
    Hi Colin, it that really the case though? Looking at the commit log history [1] - there's plenty of commits with the word "sponsor" in it, as far back as 1996. (Off topic, I have crazy respect for you btw) [1] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored&page=217 https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored&page=217
    - cperciva 12y ago
      OK, maybe "never" is a bit of a stretch. "Very rarely, even by people whom I knew were getting paid by their employers to spend 100% of their time working on FreeBSD"?
    - feld 12y ago
      "Sponsored by: " was added to the FreeBSD svn template rather recently. If it wasn't in the template, people usually forgot to fill it in. https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports?view=revision&revision=314983 https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports?view=revision&revision=3149...
- segmondy 12y ago
  All commits are also not equal, just like not all LOC is equal. Very often I see folks with a lot of commit on github, when I look at the diff, it's 2 lines, 1 line. I'm the kind of person that will probably write 20 lines before I commit. I think companies are more likely to have done something bigger, tested it, used it for a while then committed, but individual developer could just commit on a line or two for say bug fixes. This is not to make an excuse for commercial entities, I still think they can do much more in helping projects, but if too much money flows into open source, it just will end up corrupting the community.

by swills 12y ago

tiffanyh 12y ago

I'll bite. Core FreeBSD has 272,082 commits [1] Of those, only 9,244 commits [2] have the word "Sponsored" in their commit message; however, 3,486 were sponsored by "The FreeBSD Foundation" [3]. So only a net total of 5,758 commits were company sponsored. Said another way, that means just 2.1% of all commits ever made to FreeBSD, in it's 21 year existence, were companies sponsoring and submitting patches. So no, I think it's safe to say that FreeBSD is primarily run and operated by lone individuals who do it because they personally love FreeBSD. Edit: typo, fixed stats. [1] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q= https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q= [2] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored [3] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=%22The+FreeBSD+Foundation%22 https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=%22The+FreeBSD+Foundati...

justincormack 12y ago
I don't think thats entirely fair, I don't think anyone obliges you to add "Sponsored" and I would expect the figure is higher than that.
pyre 12y ago
> That means just 3.4% of all commits ever made to FreeBSD, in it's 21 year existence, were companies sponsoring and submitting patches. I understand your point, but all commits are not created equal. Some commits could be immensely 'more important' than others.
cperciva 12y ago
Until a few years ago the "Sponsored" keyword was never used. And as justincormack mentioned, lots of commits are simply not marked as such.
- tiffanyh 12y ago
  Hi Colin, it that really the case though? Looking at the commit log history [1] - there's plenty of commits with the word "sponsor" in it, as far back as 1996. (Off topic, I have crazy respect for you btw) [1] https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored&page=217 https://secure.freshbsd.org/search?q=Sponsored&page=217
  - cperciva 12y ago
    OK, maybe "never" is a bit of a stretch. "Very rarely, even by people whom I knew were getting paid by their employers to spend 100% of their time working on FreeBSD"?
  - feld 12y ago
    "Sponsored by: " was added to the FreeBSD svn template rather recently. If it wasn't in the template, people usually forgot to fill it in. https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports?view=revision&revision=314983 https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports?view=revision&revision=3149...
segmondy 12y ago
All commits are also not equal, just like not all LOC is equal. Very often I see folks with a lot of commit on github, when I look at the diff, it's 2 lines, 1 line. I'm the kind of person that will probably write 20 lines before I commit. I think companies are more likely to have done something bigger, tested it, used it for a while then committed, but individual developer could just commit on a line or two for say bug fixes. This is not to make an excuse for commercial entities, I still think they can do much more in helping projects, but if too much money flows into open source, it just will end up corrupting the community.