Linux Foundation Celebrates with a Quadruple Scotch

My last two posts about the Linux Foundation have been about how it is broadening its scope to embrace open projects well beyond the Linux kernel. For example, there was the OpenDaylight Project, and then the OpenBEL. Now we have this:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linux Foundation on the Foundations of Linux

One of the many valuable things that come out of the Linux Foundation is an annual review of Linux kernel development. It's just released the 2013 edition (freely available upon registration), and the news is resoundingly good. Here are the key points.

On Open Enterprise blog.

A New Chapter for Open Source?

Back in April, I wrote about in interesting new venture from the Linux Foundation called the OpenDaylight Project. As I pointed out then, what made this significant was that it showed how the Linux Foundation was beginning to move beyond its historical origins of supporting the Linux ecosystem, towards the broader application of the important lessons it has learnt about open source collaboration in the process. Following that step, we now have this:

On Open Enterprise blog.

OpenDaylight and the Future of Enterprise Software

Earlier this week, the Linux Foundation made an announcement about the oddly-named OpenDaylight project:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linux Foundation's Jim Zemlin on the New Lock-in

Last year, I interviewed the head of the Linux Foundation, Jim Zemlin, about his own career, and about his organisation. That interview took place at the first European LinuxCon, which was held in Prague. This year, it took place in Barcelona, and I took the opportunity to catch up with Zemlin on what had happened in the intervening time (disclosure: the Linux Foundation paid for my travelling and accommodation while I was there.)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linux Foundation Makes Enterprise Open Source Boring

In the early days of free software, the struggle was just to get companies to try this new and rather unconventional approach, without worrying too much about how that happened. That typically meant programs entering by the back door, surreptitiously installed by in-house engineers who understood the virtues of the stuff - and that it was easier to ask for forgiveness after the event than for permission before.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linux.com Gets Community Religion

It's widely accepted that one of the core engines driving the success of free software is the central role the community has there, be it the community of coders or the community of users. The power of the community, even outside the world of software, is demonstrated by the 200 million+ users of Facebook, and the steep ascent of Twitter, not to mention the hundreds of other social networking sites.

So it's deeply ironic that the free software world has no central point where that community can come together, albeit virtually. That lack has been remedied now, at least to a certain extent, with the unveiling of the new Linux.com site. This has been revamped, and now places the concept of Community at its heart. Other sections include News, DistributionCentral, Learn and Directory. Everything's pretty adumbratory at the moment, but that's to be expected.

Two things strike me as particularly good omens. One is that emphasis on community, and the other is the ambition: Linux.com obviously wants to become the first place people should turn to find out more about this strange thing called GNU/Linux, and where people return in order to interact with fellow explorers. It's not quite the be-all and end-all for free software, which obviously extends well beyond GNU/Linux, but it's a good start.

The True Value of Nothing

How much is GNU/Linux worth? Well, its price is zero, but it's clearly incredibly valuable: what to do? Here's what a new paper from the Linux Foundation did....

On Open Enterprise blog.

You, Too, Can Be a Kernel Hacker

On Open Enterprise blog.

A Good Foundation to Build On

On Open Enterprise blog.

Linux: Too Much of a Good Thing?

The transformation of the Linux Foundation from a rather sleepy, peripheral player into one of the main voices for open source has been fascinating to watch. It's certainly welcome, too, because one of the problems of Linux in particular, and open source in general, is that the distributed production has tended to lead to dissipation in terms of getting the message across.

Now, in addition to a useful series of interviews with open source luminaires, the Linux Foundation is getting into surveys:

The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it is publishing a new report written by kernel developers Jonathan Corbet and Greg Kroah-Hartman, and LF Director of Marketing Amanda McPherson.

The report titled “Linux Kernel Development: How Fast is it Going, Who is doing it and Who is Sponsoring it?” is available today. The paper finds that over the last three years the number of developers contributing to the kernel has tripled and that there has been a significant increase in the number of companies supporting kernel development.

Even though Linux has achieved near-ubiquity as a technology platform powering Internet applications, corporate servers, embedded and mobile devices and desktops, mainstream users know very little about how Linux is actually developed. This community paper exposes those dynamics and describes a large and distributed developer and corporate community that supports the expansion and innovation of the Linux kernel. The Linux kernel has become a common resource developed on a massive scale by companies who are fierce competitors in other areas.

Among its findings:

o Every Linux kernel is being developed by nearly 1,000 developers working for more than 100 different corporations. This is the foundation for the largest distributed software development project in the world.

o Since 2005, the number of active kernel developers has tripled, reflecting the growing importance of Linux in the embedded systems, server, and desktop markets.

o Between 70 and 95 percent of those developers are being paid for their work, dispelling the “hobbyist” myth present from the start of open source development.

...

o More than 70 percent of total contributions to the kernel come from developers working at a range of companies including IBM, Intel, The Linux Foundation, MIPS Technology, MontaVista, Movial, NetApp, Novell and Red Hat. These companies, and many others, find that by improving the kernel they have a competitive edge in their markets.

But one result seems slightly worrying to me:

o An average of 3,621 lines of code are added to the kernel tree every day, and a new kernel is released approximately every 2.7 months.

o The kernel, since 2005, has been growing at a steady state of 10 percent per year.

Surely that means that Linux is steadily becoming more and more bloated? I've always been of the view that one of Linux's great virtues is leanness, especially compared to a Certain Other operating system. While change can be good, I don't think that more is necessarily is better when it comes to lines of code. Perhaps the Linux Foundation's next project could be to study how much of the kernel could be trimmed away to return it to its earlier, svelte self.

OK, So Adobe Supports GNU/Linux – But How Much?

On Open Enterprise blog.

In Praise of Journalistic Scum

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Voices – Mark Shuttleworth

On Open Enterprise blog.

In Search of the GNU/Linux Desktop

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Foundational Ted Ts'o

Ted Ts'o is not widely known outside hacker circles, and yet he has played an important role in the development of Linux right from the start. He was using it from version 0.02 or 0.03 of the kernel, and contributed code to 0.10; he also set up the first site in the US that carried Linux and related software. Since then:

Ts'o is also a Linux filesystem maintainer, a role in which he maintains several packages including e2fsprogs. He currently serves on the board of USENIX, is the founder and chair of the annual Linux Kernel Developers' Summit and regularly teaches tutorials on Linux and other open source software. Ts'o was project leader for Kerberos, a network authentication system used by Red Hat Enteprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows. He was also a member of Security Area Directorate for the Internet Engineering Task Force where he chaired the IP Security (ipsec) Working Group and was a founding board member of the Free Standards Group (FSG).

That's from the Linux Foundation press release announcing that Ts'o would be joining that organisation as "chief platform strategist" during a two-year fellowship, before returning to IBM, his current employer.

Given the key roles he played in the early days, it's good to see him getting some recognition in this way. It's also a reflection of the growing maturity of the Linux ecosystem that such roles as "chief platform strategist" exist at all.

Linux Weather Forecast

Get your umbrellas out for the Linux Weather Forecast:

The need for a Linux Weather Forecast arises out of Linux’s unique development model. With proprietary software, product managers define a “roadmap” they deliver to engineers to implement, based on their assessments of what users want, generally gleaned from interactions with a few customers. While these roadmaps are publicly available, they are frequently not what actually gets technically implemented and are often delivered far later than the optimistic timeframes promised by proprietary companies.

Conversely, in Linux and open source software, users contribute directly to the software, setting the direction with their contributions. These changes can quickly get added to the mainline kernel and other critical packages, depending on quality and usefulness. This quick feedback and development cycle results in fast software iterations and rapid feature innovation. A new kernel version is generally released every three months, new desktop distributions every six months, and new enterprise distributions every 18 months.

While the forecast is not a roadmap or centralized planning tool, the Linux Weather Forecast gives users, ISVs, partners and developers a chance to track major developments in Linux and adjust their business accordingly, without having to comb through mailing lists of the thousands of developers currently contributing to Linux. Through the Linux Weather Forecast, users and ecosystem members can track the amazing innovation occurring in the Linux community. This pace of software innovation is unmatched in the history of operating systems. The Linux Weather Forecast will help disseminate the right information to the ever growing audience of Linux developers and users in the server, desktop and mobile areas of computing, and will complement existing information available from distributions in those areas.

Good to see Jonathan Corbet, editor of LWN.net, for whom I write occasionally, spreading some of his deep kernelly knowledge in this way.

Open Legislation

Given that it's clear what the source code of democracy is - its laws - an obvious thing to try would be to apply open source techniques to the process of drawing up legislation:

"In the world of open source, your contribution, vetted and approved by your peers, gets committed into the mainline in a completely transparent and accountable process," Amanda McPherson, director of marketing Email Marketing Software - Free Demo for the Linux Foundation, told LinuxInsider.

"If Joe Citizen could impact and view the legislative process in the way a Linux developer can, I believe the result would be superior legislation," she said. "Lawmakers would be judged on results, those with the most and best to contribute could do so, and special-interest groups working selfishly would be exposed."

Moreover, there's a technology just waiting for this kind of approach:

"Laws go through all kinds of markups, changes and amendments," Leyden said. "The process has evolved from making those changes on parchment to at least using word-processing documents, but it's not that big a step to think of moving to the next generation of tools and crafting a whole piece of legislation on a wiki."

Interestingly, one of the main voices quoted in these two articles on open legislation is Eben Moglen who - quite unsurprisingly - has many insightful comments on the idea. Yet another reason to read them.

The Penguin Goes to Redmond

Well, to Redmond Magazine, that is....

The (Other) Foundation

As a big fan of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, I was delighted to learn that the Linux people have done their psychohistorical calculations, and realised they need to create one themeselves.