How much GNU is there in GNU/Linux?

Pedro Côrte-Real has posted the results of an investigation into the provenance of the code making up a Linux distribution. "Figure 1 shows the total LOC in Ubuntu natty split by the major projects that produce it. By this metric GNU software is about 8%. I didn’t include GNOME in the GNU category because it seems to now be effectively run outside GNU but including that the total for GNU would be around 13%. I found two things to be really surprising in this chart. The first is that the kernel is actually comparable in size to all the GNU software. The second is that small projects actually dominate the total amount. It seems that at least for what Ubuntu packages, the origin of the software is highly dispersed."

Comments (121 posted)