Government Computer News
Linux now a corporate beast
Dispelling the perception that Linux is cobbled together by a large cadre of lone hackers working in isolation, the individual in charge of managing the Linux kernel said that most Linux improvements now come from corporations.
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“People’s stereotype [of the typical Linux developer] is of a male computer geek working in his basement writing code in his spare time, purely for the love of his craft. Such people were a significant force up until about five years ago,” said Andrew Morton, whose role is maintaining the Linux kernel in its stable form.
Morton said contributions from such enthusiasts, “is waning.” Instead, most code is generated by programmers punching the corporate time clock.
About 1,000 developers contribute changes to Linux on a regular basis, Morton said. Of those 1,000 developers, about 100 are paid to work on Linux by their employers. And those 100 have contributed about 37,000 of the last 38,000 changes made to the operating system. Morton spoke last week at a meeting sponsored by the Forum on Technology and Innovation, a semi-regular meeting to address technology-related issues held by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Sen. Ron Wyden (D- Ore.) and the Council on Competitiveness.
The meeting in Washington was on the policy implications of open-source software. One concern raised is whether Linux can offer a high level of security—and not entangle users in intellectual property issues—even though it is being developed almost exclusively by volunteers.
Earlier this year, the SCO Group Inc. of Lindon, Utah, requested that the Energy Department pay SCO licensing fees for its use of Linux, claiming that some of SCO’s proprietary code was leaked into Linux (See GCN).
Since Linux is an open-source project, anybody is free to submit changes to the core development team. The team reviews the proposed changes and incorporates into the kernel those they find to their liking.
Even though anyone can submit changes, rarely does good code come from just anyone. Morton noted that it is rare that a significant change would be submitted from someone who is completely unknown to the core developers. And all submitted code is inspected by other members of the group, so it is unlikely some malicious function may be secretly embedded in Linux.
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