The Linux Kernel

Who is developing it,
how they are doing it,
and why you should care

Greg Kroah­Hartman
SuSE Labs / Novell
 4,300 lines added
1,800 lines removed
1,500 lines modified

per day 2007 ­ 2008
2.6.20 to 2.6.24­rc8
3.69 changes per hour

2.6.20 to 2.6.24­rc8
New release every 
2¾ months
9.2 million lines

as of the 2.6.25 release
2399 Developers

Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
Top developers by quantity
Adrian Bunk 754
Al Viro 698
Thomas Gleixner 656
David S. Miller 655
Bart Zolnierkiewicz 637
Paul Mundt 610
Ralf Baechle 604
Ingo Molnar 596
Patrick McHardy 554
Tejun Heo 530
Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
 Top Signed­off­by:
Andrew Morton 9086
Linus Torvalds 8960
David S. Miller 4926
Jeff Garzik 2960
Ingo Molnar 2489
Greg Kroah­Hartman 2098
Thomas Gleixner 1098
Mauro Carvalho Chehab 1822
Paul Mackerras 1675
John Linville 1461
Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
Who is funding this work?
1. 
2. Red Hat 11.6%
3. IBM   7.5%
4. Novell   6.6%
5. 
6. Intel   4.1%
7. Oracle   2.2%
8. Consultants   2.2%
9. Academia   1.5%
10. Renesas Technology   1.5%
Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
Who is funding this work?
1. “Amateurs” 18.5%
2. Red Hat 11.6%
3. IBM   7.5%
4. Novell   6.6%
5. Unknown individuals   5.5%
6. Intel   4.1%
7. Oracle   2.2%
8. Consultants   2.2%
9. Academia   1.5%
10. Renesas Technology   1.5%
Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
Who is funding this work?
...
13. Google   1.4%

Kernel releases 2.6.18 ­ 2.6.23­rc8
 Without Andrew

...
40. Google

Kernel releases 2.6.18 ­ 2.6.23­rc8
 27 Google employees
contributed to the kernel
in 2007­2008

Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
Google employee contributions
11. Andrew Morton 507
149. David Rientjes   67
324. Paul Menage   24
398. Ken Chen   18
658. Matt LaPlante     7
770. Aaron Durbin  5
770. Oleg Ryjkov  5
852. Tim Hockin  4
958. Martin Bligh  3
958. Suleiman Souhlal  3
Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
Google employee contributions
1127. Arve Hjønnevåg 2
1127. Brian Swetland 2
1127. Gwendal Grignou 2
1417. Al Borchers 1
1417. David Smith 1
1417. Ethan Solomita 1
1417. Jeff Bailey 1
1417. Joshua Wise 1
1417. Maciej Zenczykowski 1
Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
Google employee contributions
1417. Masoud Asgharifard Sharbiani1
1417. Mike Chan 1
1417. Ollie Wild 1
1417. Priyanka Gupta 1
1417. Ranjit Manomohan 1
1417. Rohit Seth 1
1417. Sam Jansen 1
1417. Warren Turkal 1

Kernel releases 2.6.20 ­ 2.6.25
New stuff in 2.6.26
Korina driver
superH MX-G
ns_to_ktime()
struct class_device removed
virtual files in /proc/pid/mountinfo
/proc/vmallocinfo
SH-MobileR2 CPU support SEQ_SKIP allowed from show() NUMA for SPARC Niagra
Solution Engine SH7721 Wolfson WM9713 codecs Xen baloon driver
ARM YL9200 TI DAVINCI AC97 /dev/mem support removed
Kwikbyte KB9260 Emagic Audiowerk 2 KVM for s390
Olimex SAM9-L9260 x86 PC speakers KVM for PowerPC 440
emQbit ECB_AT91 Asus AV100 (Xonar DX) KVM for ia64
Digi ns921x processor Micron MT9M001 perprocess secure bits
Nias SMX crypto Micron MT9V022 getrusage() RUSAGE_THREAD
AMCC PPC460EX PXA27x Quick Capture partions with NBD
Emerson KSI8560 Kworld ATSC 120 tuners audit open file tests
WindRiver SBC8641D cx23417 MPEG encoders /sys/class/bdi
Logitech Rumblepad 2 Integrant ITD1000 tuners shared writable mappings for FUSE
Renesas SH7760 I2c Philips TDA10048HN demodulators ioremap() always uncached on x86
SuperH Mobile I2C Philips SAA7171/3/4 a/v decoders /sys/kernel/slab/NAME/order
PCI Express ASPM Auvitek AU8522 demodulators WARN_ON taints kernel
security= boot option Samsung S5H1411-based tuners get_info() for /proc removed
NAT for SCTP, SCCP and UDP-lite Xen framebuffer proc_create_data()
network window scaling w/ syncookies Xen keyboard object debugging infrastructure
network namespace work Xen mouse Solarflare Comm Solarstorm SFC4000
mesh networking for mac80211 Wolfson Microelectronics touchscreens Hauppauge HVR-1600 TV tuner card
SELinux permisive types wireless Xbox 360 controller WTF are you doing reading this
realtime group scheduler work Zhen Hua PPM-4CH transmitters ISP 1760 USB host controller
SunOS binary support removed SPCP8x5 USB to serial Cypress c67x00 OTG controller
read-only bind mounts NCR 53c9x SCSI controller Intel PXA 27x USB controller
kbdb Freescale 8610 and 5121 display DEFINE_KLIST()
PAT for x86 Intel 965G/965GM KLIST_INIT()
inode_getsecid() TI OMAP sound controller klist_add_after()
ipc_getsecid() Eee PC function keys klist_add_before()
ieee80211 MAC removed Intel IXP4xx Ethernet div_u64 and friends
generic semaphores basic braille screen reader support sysfs_streq
ata_port_operations inheritance OLPC XO architecture support MODULE_FORCE_LOAD