Key findings from the 2017 Linux kernel development report include:
- Roughly 15,600 developers from more than 1,400 companies have contributed to the Linux kernel since the adoption of Git (which made detailed tracking possible). Since the last report, over 4,300 developers from more than 500 companies have contributed to the kernel. 1,670 of these developers contributed for the first time, comprising about a third of contributors.
- The Top 10 organizations sponsoring Linux kernel development since the last report include Intel, Red Hat, Linaro, IBM, Samsung, SUSE, Google, AMD, Renesas and Mellanox.
- The rate of Linux development continues to increase, as does the number of developers and companies involved in the process. The average number of changes accepted into the kernel per hour is 8.5, a significant increase from the 7.8 changes in the last report, which translates to 204 changes every day and over 1,400 per week. The average days of development per release increased slightly to 67.66 days from 66 last year, with every release spaced either 63 or 70 days apart, providing significant predictability.
- The number of unpaid developers may be stabilizing, according to the report, with these developers contributing 8.2% of contributions, a slight increase from 7.7% in last year’s report.
- Version 4.13 of the Linux kernel now has 60,538 files and 24,766,703 lines of code. The kernel now has almost three million lines more than it had at the time of the previous version of the report.
