LWN: Comments on "Novell increasing openSUSE support"

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

sharms — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:56:56 +0000

Just to clarify 10 was an arbitrary number, and wasn't meant to suggest the resources were the ones I was saying. Just in general that the best resources outperform most other resources, so count alone isn't that good at quantifying it.

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

jospoortvliet — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 05:47:35 +0000

True, and I'm sure both Novell and Red Hat employ many corporate junkies.
However, they also employ many great community members (like Stephen Kulow
and Klaas Freitag, btw) and I think it's not that hard for management to
pick those for working on their respective community products...

Novell increasing openSUSE support

pzb — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:52:19 +0000

This was planned (and done) prior to the DE discussion. I don't think that it really has an relationship to the desktop direction. The engineers who are now dedicated to openSUSE and community work have experience with a number of projects, and include both KDE and GNOME members.

Disclaimer, I work for SUSE but do not directly work on openSUSE.

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

pr1268 — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:22:34 +0000

10 apathetic corporate junkies can not equal 1 enthusiastic community member

"Apathetic" and "corporate junkies" are such harsh terms. One would think (hope) that the ten Novell employees chosen for this assignment are at least competent, willing, and eager Linux hackers.

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

jamesh — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 23:05:54 +0000

Those numbers are not exactly comparable with the "10 experts" Novell is announcing. Novell was contributing to OpenSUSE before this announcement and will presumably continue to contribute above those 10 experts in the future.

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

jspaleta — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:56:54 +0000

Uhm....

I do not have specific information as to how many paid manhours Red Hat invests into Fedora or to the open source ecosystem in a broader sense. I think its noteworthy information, but I don't have access to it. There are certainly paid positions that Red Hat staffs for the Fedora project such as infrastructure and release management but I don't have a complete listing as to who is directly tasked with doing work inside Fedora as part of their day-job as it relates to job description or job performance evaluations.

Nor do I know how much personal time Red Hat employees invests off-the-clock as volunteers in open development more broadly. How much of the kernel work that is attributed to Red Hat is done on personal time by a Red Hat employee? Hard question. I suspect such volunteer time investment its significant up and down the open software stack where Red Hat is paying for people to do upstream development. I suspect further that sort of effect is a general effect for everyone who is paid specifically to develop open source solutions regardless of employer (as compared to people who choose to develop open solutions as part of their work even when their employer hasn't stated a preference).

I break-out Red Hat "maintainers" in my analysis only because Red Hat holds a special position in the Fedora project make-up and its important to try to understand where project momentum is and the role of independent contributors. Even when I try to lump all Red Hat employees together regardless of how much paid time they spend on Fedora..the momentum in the contributor base is in the external community segment...and that's very good to see..as the world outside the Red Hat fence line is the bigger potential pool of contributors than the one inside. That being said, I seriously doubt most of those 250+ Red Hat employees are tasked as part of their dayjob to maintain any Fedora packages, but by assuming its all paid time I create a conservative estimate for volunteer growth. Conservative estimates are good.

If you have suggestions on enhancing the methodology I'm using...I'm all ears.

-jef

Novell increasing openSUSE support

sbergman27 — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:29:42 +0000

This is the inevitable result of OpenSuse's talk of going rogue and defaulting to a DE which is not in Novell's business interests. Novell is tightening its grip. I knew that they *would* be doing that. The only question was exactly how they would choose to do it. This method has the advantage of generating positive press.

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

sharms — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:27:01 +0000

That is a great link -- I am curious how big SuSE is with regards to engineers.

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

lkundrak — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:57:57 +0000

I believe that Jef Spaleta's recent blog posting can help you get some idea:
http://jspaleta.livejournal.com/46436.html

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

sharms — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:12:33 +0000

I am not even sure the numbers matter.

10 apathetic corporate junkies can not equal 1 enthusiastic community member, so what is more interesting is the question "Which notable resources are assigned?".

Resources assigned to a Linux distro

abacus — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:41:41 +0000

Anyone any idea about the resources assigned to other major Linux distro's, e.g. Fedora ?