- Linux 2.6.33-rc5 Released
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Hmm. I don't think there is anything earth-shaking here, although the i915 KMS changes might be noticeable. Notably if you have eDP ("embedded DisplayPort" - I think mainly a feature you'd find on a new imac), in which case it now hopefully works, but more commonly if you saw the flickering on your laptop panel due to LVDS downclocking (which saves power, but is now disabled by default until that thing is resolved).
And there's a new DVB "Mantis" driver there.
Other than that, it's a lot of random fixes, mostly small. And some defconfig updates, mostly huge and totally boring.
Linus
- 75% of Linux code now written by paid developers
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The Linux world makes much of its community roots, but when it comes to developing the kernel of the operating system, it's less a case of "volunteers ahoy!" and more a case of "where's my pay?"
During a presentation at Linux.conf.au 2010 in Wellington, LWN.net founder and kernel contributor Jonathan Corbet offered an analysis of the code contributed to the Linux kernel between December 24 2008 and January 10 2010. (The kernel serves as a basis from which individual distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian or Red Hat are developed, though these will often add or remove specific features.)
A massive amount of coding went on in that period: 2.8 million lines of code and 55,000 major changes were contributed to the kernel, which evolved from version 2.6.28 to 2.6.32 over that time. "The development process is clearly quite alive and quite active," Corbet said, noting that this amount to more than 7,000 lines of code added every day.The most striking aspect of the analysis, however, was where those lines of code originated from. 18% of contributions to the kernel were made without a specific corporate affiliation, suggesting true volunteer efforts. An additional 7% weren't classified. The remainder were from people working for specific companies in roles where developing that code was a major requirement. "75% of the code comes from people paid to do it," Corbet said.
Within that field, Red Hat topped that chart with 12%, followed by Inte with 8%, IBM and Novell with 6% each, and Oracle 3%. Despite the clear commercial rivalry between those players, central kernel development worked well, Corbet noted.
- The end of the iPod, the cult of gPodder and the beacon of freedom
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"Some people think the iPod and iTunes are podcasting and portable, digital music. Others chafe at the restrictions placed upon the user by Apple. Count me among the latter.
"I do have an iPod. It cost some $300 about seven years go. I don't know if I ever wrote my post about how I used to use it as a backup drive, barely as a music/podcast player, until I removed its protective rubber cover, let it get suitably scratched and then used the hell out of it for a subsequent year.
"But ... I couldn't load it with files from any of my computers. No, it was and still can only be updated from the iBook G4 on which we run iTunes. I can't drop a music file or podcast onto it from my iTunes installation on my Windows PC, from which I manage the iTunes portion of the Daily News' growing number of podcasts."
- Iomega iConnect Revealed [Wireless Data Station Lets Your Thumb Drives Act As NAS's]
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"Iomega has shown off a new device called the Iomega iConnect, a wireless data station that provided networked access for thumb drives and external drives. Simply put, the iConnect attaches to your network via a Cat6 Ethernet cable, and anything (anything meaning any external hard drive or USB thumb drive) plugged into its three USB ports will become NAS for your network. The iConnect is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux..."
- Create flow charts with Kivio
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"When you open the application (see Figure 1) you will immediately see the difference between Dia and Kivio (and more of a relationship to Microsoft Visio). Unlike Dia, Kivio offers a multi-paned view with various tools available to make the job more efficient.
"Outside of the interface, one of the first differences you will notice, between Dia and Kivio, is when you create an element on the chart Kivio does not automatically ready that element for text (like Dia does). If you want to add text to an element you first create the element, then you select the text tool, click on the element you just created, and type your text."
- CodePlex Foundation Reports on 100 Day Goals
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"Earlier this week, I noted the fact that the 100 day mark for the CodePlex Foundation had passed (on December 19) without any comment from the Foundation on how they had fared against their aggressive goals for that time period, including the replacement of the founding, interim Board of Directors, with a permanent board.
"That blog entry sparked a call from the Foundation's PR firm, and an opportunity for me to spend an hour on the phone with Sam Ramji, the interim President of the Foundation, and Foundation Deputy Director Mark Stone during which we covered a lot of ground, including what's been accomplished so far, what the Foundation has learned so far, how that has affected its planning, and what we can expect to be announced in the short term and long term future. They also informed me that a press release covering some of the same topics would be issued today. That announcement was posted to the Foundation Web site at Noon, and you can find it here (as usual, it's also pasted in at the end of this blog entry).
"With that as prelude, here's what we talked about, and here's what I learned.
"Overview: It sounds from my conversation with Sam and Mark that the Foundation has had a rather typical startup experience: too much to do in too little time, some glitches, some surprises, and some successes. Unlike a typical startup, which will often go into stealth mode and contemplate its navel for months on end, though, the Foundation has been engaging - as it should - in a great deal of dialogue with all sorts of people in all sorts of roles in the commercial and community landscape. They include members of the open source community generally, potential project contributors, potential sponsor members, Microsoft ecosystem OSS participants, and others."
