A 2016 retrospective

This is the final LWN Weekly Edition for 2016; we will, as usual, not publish in the final week of the year. Over the many years that LWN has been in operation, we have developed a quaint tradition of using this last edition to look back over the year that has passed and, in particular, to poke fun at the predictions we made back in January. So, without further ado, it is time to look at what seemed plausible twelve months ago.

What was predicted

The first prediction was that GPL enforcement would become a hotter topic in 2016. That certainly happened, though the filing of another high-profile infringement suit, also predicted, did not. Indeed, rather than filing more suits, the community spent a lot of time talking about when we should not go to court. The disclosure of the McHardy lawsuits drew attention to one way in which things can go wrong, while the dismissal (for now) of the infringement suit against VMware highlighted a different sort of hazard. The extensive discussion before the Kernel Summit raised questions about the desirability of litigation in almost all situations. The community as a whole remains unhappy about the extent to which the GPL seems to be ignored with impunity, but there is little consensus on what we should do about it.

There is little evidence that the predicted increase in corporate comfort with the GPL has actually come to pass. If anything, rumors about the McHardy lawsuits and loud calls for more litigation have pushed things in the other direction.

Your editor bravely predicted that attempts to create new, relatively free mobile devices would continue, but cravenly (or, one might say, wisely) said nothing about how successful those efforts would be. We have seen some efforts, such as CopperheadOS, show up during the year. But, as the discouraging news from Cyanogen Inc. shows, this is a hard business to try to succeed in. Until such a time as freedom and security become important points to mainstream device buyers, opportunities are likely to be hard to find and exploit.

The prediction that the year-2038 problem would be mostly solved by the end of the year can be best described as aligning poorly with reality. It was already joyfully mocked at the 2016 Kernel Summit, and perhaps can be allowed to fade slowly into obscurity now. Work is continuing on solving this problem, and there is little danger of a last-minute panic like we saw in 1999, but it feels like some of the urgency has gone out of the efforts in this area.

We heard a lot about blockchains, just like the (obvious) prediction said. The announcement that Apache Software Foundation founder Brian Behlendorf would be heading up the Linux Foundation's "Hyperledger" project is an obvious example. Blockchains were big news, but they have not, yet, transformed the world.

Did the development community begin to act seriously on security, as predicted in January? The answer would have to be a cautious "yes". The kernel hardening efforts have made some progress, we are seeing more focused fuzz-testing of software at all levels, and so on. The seriousness and effectiveness of these efforts is subject to a certain amount of debate, but we are trying to do better. That said, all the evidence suggests that we need to be trying rather harder still.

Your editor predicted a continuation of efforts to ban robust encryption. That may have happened, but they didn't get far in much of the world. Instead, it seems clear that, most of the time, our systems are so vulnerable that encryption tends not to be a big problem for anybody wanting access to our data. That said, one would be wise to keep an eye on the incoming administration in the US, which may yet try to pursue such an agenda.

We predicted that there would be more attention paid to hidden antifeatures in embedded systems. Occasional events, such as the revelation that Nook tablets come complete with pre-installed spyware, raise eyebrows. There was some brief unhappiness about the bricking of Revolv hubs, and there may be more if, as suggested, Pebble smartwatches soon see a centrally imposed "reduction in functionality." But much of the world still seems to pay little attention to such problems.

The prediction that the 4.9 kernel would come out on November 27 was off by two weeks — the actual release happened on December 11. That may look pretty good to those of us who remember the times when it hard to predict which year the next kernel release would happen in, but it could have been better. In truth, the trend toward shorter kernel release cycles ended in 2016. Of the six kernels released this year, four required 70 days for their development cycle, while only 4.5 and 4.6 were done in 63 days.

The final prediction was that non-volatile memory devices would make their presence felt. Something that vague must surely come true in some way. These devices are motivating a lot of changes deep down in the kernel, where the age-old assumption that I/O is devastatingly slow becomes increasingly unwarranted. But there are still relatively few of us who have such devices in hand.

What was not

One thing that your editor should probably have predicted was the increase in the importance of software distribution channels that bypass the traditional Linux distributors. These channels can be language-specific (such as the venerable CPAN), run by a specific project for its own software (the controversy over ownCloud packaging was covered in the same edition that carried the 2016 predictions), tied to container systems like Docker or rkt, or relatively new mechanisms like Flatpak. The role of distributors is changing. Whether that is a good thing remains to be seen; distributors are an important advocate for their users, and we may well find that we miss that role in our new, disintermediated future.

Back in 2001, Microsoft's CEO described Linux as "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches". The company's position toward Linux has been changing since then, and perhaps it should have been possible to foresee that 2016 would be the year that Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation — and as a platinum member at that. One might think that the company's conversion to open-source friendliness is complete but, by all accounts, its ongoing software patent activity says that there is still some work to be done.

In 2012, your editor predicted that LibreOffice would leave OpenOffice (which had been recently dumped into the Apache Software Foundation) in the dust. That prediction was accounted as a failure at the end of the year. Four years later, though, it has become clear that that is exactly what has happened. Your editor happily takes credit for having been a bit ahead of his time, while pointing to something shiny to distract you all from the fact that he didn't see the issue coming to a head in 2016.

Until next year...

One other thing your editor failed to predict was the departure of LWN editor Nathan Willis, who is off pursuing other interests. The search for a replacement has proved to be harder than expected and is still underway; we still have an open position and would be most interested in hearing from anybody who would like to write for our exacting readers. We do hope to get back to full strength — and possibly beyond — not too far into next year.

Even though we have been short-handed for the last few months, we have managed to put out 464 feature articles over the course of the year; 91 of those were written by outside authors. Our 2016 conference coverage has articles from 28 separate events. We also ended up replacing an important part of our server infrastructure between deadlines. All told, we have stayed busy and gotten a lot done this year.

The reason we are able to do that, of course, is that we have a dedicated and generous reader base that has been willing to support us for the long haul. LWN will celebrate its 19th birthday in just under one month, and, sometimes, it still feels like we're just getting started. Let us finish the year by expressing our thanks to all of you; we wouldn't be here without you. The best holiday wishes from all of us at LWN, and we'll see you back here early next year.

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