First GNOME Census Results 175
Posted
by
timothy
from the but-it's-in-the-constitution dept.
from the but-it's-in-the-constitution dept.
supersloshy writes "The GNOME Census, a project to see who contributes to GNOME and how, has released its first set of results. The results group people by their reasons to contribute code, what they contributed code to, and what percentage of the total contributions they have. For example, 23.45% of code contributions were volunteer, 16.3% of code contributions came from Red Hat, 1% of contributions came from Canonical (which has caused a lot of controversy), and 0.24% came from Mozilla Corporation. The census results are also represented in diagrams (release activity, why contributions were made, and what was contributed to and by who). The report is also available here and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license."
Languages (Score:5, Interesting)
One interesting observation about the contributions on language bindings: Obviously volunteers are mostly into scripting languages (Python, Perl), while each compiled language is dominated by a single company (C++ by Openismus, Java by Operation dynamics, and C# by Novell).
Freeloaders = good (Score:5, Interesting)
To claim that Canonical is freeloading on other companies' contributions is a bit of myopic, in my opinion.
'Freeloading' often has a negative meaning, but in open source land the opposite is true IMHO. Any additional user helps to improve the software just by using it:
So regardless of who deserves credits, that's many networks effects that benefit all users of such software, Gnome included. Freeriding on that is about as harmful as watching new years' fireworks without lighting any of your own - you still contribute to the party, just by being there. And in that sense, Canonical has done a lot to support Linux - by attracting & supporting many new users.
Re:Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Interesting)
Check which modules get rejected (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason why RedHat's piece of GNOME commits is so big is because they have been rejecting modules developed by competing companies. Novell made a push to get their start menu included in GNOME, it was rejected by the RedHat majority. Same thing with Compiz, a compositing window manager developed by David Reeveman of Novell, also rejected despite it being an almost complete drop in replacement for Metacity which is ancient RedHat technology. He also worked on bringing OpenGL into xorg and had a working prototype for how to do it. Also rejected because RedHat favored a different approach by writing AIGLX [wikipedia.org]. The reason why Novell doesn't have a large stake in GNOME's codebase is certainly not for a lack of trying. There are dozen more modules that have been rejected over the years. What they all have in common is that RedHat employers aren't working on them.
Then check what modules have had no problem getting included: PulseAudio, Clutter, DeviceKit, Cheese, gnome-user-share... All created by RedHat employers. Basically, when it comes to the core of GNOME's infrastructure, RedHat has been very effective in keeping outsiders out.
Re:Apples and Oranges (Score:1, Interesting)
then look at the gnome-constribution comparison between Ubuntu and (kde distro) Mandriva...
Re:Freeloaders = good (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you want to get paid.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wasn't going to post but maybe this is the reason for the tribal comments.
There is no value in measuring contributions by various sections of the linux community commercial or others.
Red hat makes valuable contributions so does Cannonical, so do many other companies other than SCO i think we can agree on that. I have a bias towards ubuntu it works on my systems and i am familiar with it. However i don't think the sun shines out of cannonicals arse , that now belongs to oracle.
but seriously measuring contributions made by other people is divisive and unnecessary. I've contributed in a few area's and just helping newbies is a contribution that most can make. The size of the contribution doesn't matter. Redhat is commercially successful and turns a profit mark shuttleworth pumps money into Linux via ubuntu and the parent seems to say that isn't good enough do more.
really size of contribution is up to the contributer and assigning value to each contribution is just divisive
linux is being used more by more people and there are more people contributing thats all we need to know.
getting partisan and making digs only makes for trouble.
all contributions have some value
Re:I call bullshit (Score:4, Interesting)
My guess: you used stable Debian.
Drivers usually come with the kernel, and Debian trades new drivers and other features for a stable environment. Ubuntu simply ships a more recent kernel, at the expense of less testing.
Another option is simply using Debian Stable with a backported kernel [kmuto.jp]. It's as easy to install as normal Debian, but comes with a more recent & less tested kernel.
Re:I call bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
1. You're conflating Ubuntu and Canonical.
2. Canonical is a large, private company which has been around since 2004. If we compare the contributions only since 2004 then Red Hat has still contributed more code than Canonical: to EVERY part of the Linux stack. More egregiously if we compare the large, well-funded Canonical to small start ups like Litl, Collabora and Fluendo even then Canonical fails to contribute as much.
Everyone puts these Canonical freeloaders to shame.
You would indeed be wrong if you merely said "Red Hat contributes 16 times as much code". That's ONLY what they contribute to GNOME specifically. They develop the kernel, most of the toolchain for compilation, vast parts of the network stack, fonts, ... basically bloody everything AND they do that by adhering to Free Software and SHARING EVERYTHING UPSTREAM where it's easy for any distro to benefit from their work.
Re:Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Interesting)
They've also made it easier to install proprietary drivers, which is always a mess in Fedora.
[citation required]
And not just a post by an Ubuntu user who heard it off a friend. I hear this every day and never met anyone who has supporting evidence. Along with "Fedora is just for servers", "Fedora uses bleeding edge so nothing works" and "there be dragons in them hills".
I install Ubuntu, Suse and Fedora on university machines on a daily basis. There is no massive discerning difference between these distributions that makes one much easier for 3d drivers than the other. All three have package repos for proprietary drivers and are as easy to set up.
Re:Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Interesting)
I install whichever OS they ask for. I also install Windows XP and getting the accelerated drivers for that is actually a pain. Why all three? Because there are Suse fans who feel most comfortable using Suse. Because there are multiprocessor simulators which are distributed only in .deb packages. Because, and I really must strongly emphasise this, there really isn't much of a difference between the distributions and there are no dragons!. They are all collections of the same software. If I solve a bug on one, it is the same solution on the others. This is why I feel strongly that distros should upstream their efforts. But perhaps most importantly, I do this because I want people to be comfortable using their computers. The reinstall cycle is about once every 2 years. I would appreciate you not insinuating people being mentally deficient on the ground that I put in more effort that is strictly necessary, after all the open source community is driven by people who put in more effort than the minimum necessary to get the job done, in order to make others' lives better
What matters is end user convenience (Score:5, Interesting)
As a user, I don't care in the slightest who committed more patches, or lines of code.
What I do care about is how easy and convenient it is to use a particular distro. And there Ubuntu offers a lot. Try to play an MP3 file? Fail on Fedora out of the box; with Ubuntu, you get a dialog asking you if it's okay to download the codec - a single click, a brief wait, and it Just Works.
Or take drivers. As soon as it boots, Ubuntu prompts me to let it install proprietary NVidia drivers. A single click, and I have a 3D enabled system which actually works and has performance decent enough for gaming. Fedora? Either join the bug hunt with noveau, or search for a 3rd-party repository providing what you want.
Yeah, yeah, I know, Free Software is supposed to good for your karma, and friends don't let friends use proprietary crap. And Red Hat are your friends, right?..
Well, I guess some people do, and those people stick to Fedora. Judging by the amount of users it has compared to Ubuntu (and other distros who don't shove "FOSS only" into their users' throats), it's not as popular as some people would like it to be.
The linked blog post by an ex-RedHatter is dripping with venom over how Ubuntu "beats everyone at marketing", but totally misses the point. Ubuntu beats everyone at convenience and "just working" first and foremost; marketing is just icing on that cake. You want to make a principled stand over FOSS? Fine, but then don't complain when users flock elsewhere!
Re:I call bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
I found an awesome list created by ubuntu community (didn't find anything comparable from anywhere else)
Not sure why you couldn't find it, but Mandriva has had a database of supported hardware since before I started using Linux (which was Mandrake 9.2, in 2003). Having a list of supported hardware certainly isn't a new idea.
http://www.mandriva.com/hardware/ [mandriva.com]
installed ubuntu and it all worked out of the box. As it always does with Ubuntu.
Glad you've had good luck with it. Last couple times I've tried I couldn't even get the installer to boot. And when my brother tried it took 4 days to get his wifi card to work (a card which works out of the box with Mandriva.) Stuck with Mandriva for many years because of that, though I've recently switched to Arch. And while it takes a couple hours to get the system setup initially on Arch, I couldn't be happier. Haven't had a single problem since installing it.
Re:Freeloaders = good (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Check which modules get rejected (Score:3, Interesting)
Notice something about the scopes of each of those projects?
I notice that Clutter is an intel project. I notice that Cheese is crashy and slow. I notice that Xgl died in favor of a solution which still isn't here, and that more of the system was composited when we had it. In fact, I notice that Compiz window effects (since you bring it up) worked probably three times faster/smoother under Xgl than they do under the modern AIGLX desktop.
Metacity ancient? What do you make of the whole X server then? Should we replace it too?
Large parts of it have been replaced already. Xgl provided DRAMATIC performance improvements, I know, because I've actually run it. I was pretty upset when they killed it since I STILL can't get performance that good.
To this day Compiz has problems with stability on anything but maybe Intel boards.
Uh, what? I've recently (say, in the last year) had metacity die just about as much as emerald, which is less stable than the default gtk-window-decorator that looks just like metacity.
I think you're a troll utilizing selective memory to try to support a point.