Core Linux Developers Stuck In Middle Management Mode

Growing pains are turning some of free software’s most talented programmers into pencil-pushing traffic cops. According to Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman, who oversees the operating system’s support for device drivers, kernel developers spend more time managing code changes, reading patches and checking others’ work than actually coding. The culprit for stalled productivity at the top […]

Milton1Growing pains are turning some of free software's most talented programmers into pencil-pushing traffic cops.

According to Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman, who oversees the operating system's support for device drivers, kernel developers spend more time managing code changes, reading patches and checking others' work than actually coding.

The culprit for stalled productivity at the top end of the process is both a recent explosive growth in the number of kernel contributors and the diversity of applications Linux is being used for, from mobile phones to computing clusters. ComputerWorldUK has the details:

In the latest kernel release the most active 30 developers authored only 30% of the changes, while two years ago the top 20 developers did 80% of the changes, he said.

At the recent Linux Symposium in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Kroah-Hartman printed out a graph listing all of the active kernel contributors and their relationships to other coders. Rendered in small type, the graph was 40 feet long.

[via Slashdot]