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Linux Credits File Reanimated 125

Posted by Hemos from the how-the-world-expands dept.
No_Weak_Heart writes "In his in depth paper Evolution of the Linux Credits file, Ilkka Tuomi discusses the challenges of extracting data from open source files, and then uses the extracted data to describe the geographical expansion of the core Linux developer community."
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Linux Credits File Reanimated More

Linux Credits File Reanimated

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  • Who Knew? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WarriorPoet42 ( 762455 ) <{moc.hcet-nosbig} {ta} {kcin}> on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:21AM (#9377409) Journal
    Luxumburg has more per capita changes then any other country?

    Finland needs to support its baby and fight back!

    --Ignore this thread as first posts are automatically modded down.

    • Re:Who Knew? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pe1rxq ( 141710 )
      The numbers aren't that far from eachother....
      Luxemburg has such a small number of residents that a few coders more or less can have a huge impact on the number.
    • I didnt know I lived in such an Open Country. Feels good.
    • *LOL*
      Luxembourg has 1! developer.. Just one, just happens to be a very small country.
      Fighting back would involve killing lot fins to reduce them to Luxembourg level :)
      • > Fighting back would involve killing lot fins to
        > reduce them to Luxembourg level

        Not really. They could kill Luxembourg's 1 developer and then wait until they catch up.

    • I guess that would be Mr. Linux floppy driver, the vice-president of LiLux [linux.lu]. Hi Alain ;-)

      I do know for a fact that there's more than one guy in Luxembourg who hacks the kernel, or at least kernel modules, just no idea why they don't appear in the credits file.

    • I consider this the most amazing fact:

      "For example, there are no developers from India, mainland China or Islamic countries."

      I thought China was among leaders (at least they talk a lot). And also the software power - India - is that possible?

      I guess it tells a lot about Linux - it's not _easy_ to live off it - only folks from well off countries can afford to donate code :-)

  • Where is Ken Brown? (Score:3, Funny)

    by KrisCowboy ( 776288 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:21AM (#9377410) Journal
    Look at this file you insensitive clod. Linus did write the kernel!!!
    • The more important question is why the heck Santa isn't mentioned there?
      • Well, that's 'cos the MINIX and UNIX codes are copyrighted. Ken Brown informed Santa that his ass will be busted this chirs'mas. Santa's on the run..he's the next Papillon :-) And to quote Ken Brown "Santa couldn't have written the code by himself - he hasn't finished his OS course and did just one year of C programming". Tell you what Ken "sonofabitch" Brown, Osama Bin Laden helped Linus write the kernel...in a cave in Afghanistan.
    • Ken is live and well, listed as the first reference...

  • Credit List? (Score:4, Funny)

    by passthecrackpipe ( 598773 ) * <passthecrackpipe.hotmail@com> on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:22AM (#9377419)
    Make sure Tanenbaum, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are listed, otherwise Ken Brown will get upset. Who knows what he will get up to if provoked - he may call all Linux developers thieves, or even worse names!

  • Awww... not animated... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jrrl ( 635743 )

    Somehow I was imagining a world map with little lights popping up to show how development spread o'er the world over time.

    Very cool anyway, but not as eye-candy-ish.

    -jrrl.

  • Where's SCO? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:23AM (#9377435)
    Odd..
    I couldnt find SCO in there..

  • Related News (Score:4, Funny)

    by deutschemonte ( 764566 ) <lane,montgomery&gmail,com> on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:24AM (#9377447) Homepage
    "and then uses the extracted data to describe the geographical expansion of the core Linux developer community."
    In a related breaking story, SCO is using these results to track down and sue Linux developers RIAA style.

  • Statistical Significance (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 14erCleaner ( 745600 ) <FourteenerCleaner@yahoo.com> on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:28AM (#9377486) Homepage Journal
    From the article: In July 2002, the Credits file contained information on 418 developers. With two exceptions, all were male.

    Anyone who thinks there's little difference between the way men's and women's brains work should consider this statistic. I don't think that societal expectations, peer pressure, or discrimination can account for the 200-to-1 ratio in this case. It's probably safe to conclude that the kernel-hacker gene resides on the Y chromosome.

    • Or... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bonch ( 38532 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:40AM (#9377617)
      It could just be that nerdy males with fewer social skills tend to gravitate toward introverted tasks that don't require a lot of personal interaction with others.

      Women, by nature, are more social creatures. Sitting alone in a basement at night hacking a kernel isn't necessarily something they can't do (I've met plenty of women who blow me away in science in math), it's something they don't want to do. Hell, I had to ask one of my female friends to help me with some SQL statements for my website. She is a complete SQL expert, and better than any male I know.

      • So not true (Score:4, Insightful)

        by BlackHawk-666 ( 560896 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:51AM (#9377755)
        I am sick of hearing this "lone hacker theory" rubbish. Since anyone who works on the kernel is going to be constantly emailing, newsgrouping, and using IRC/IM there is no reason to label them as unsocialable. Just because you are using a computer to do the socialising doesn't make it count less than an afternoon at the pub with your workmates. If they were sitting in their basements and hacking their own sources and never communicating with other developers then your model might hold up, but it just isn't relevant any more.

        • You've got to be joking (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bonch ( 38532 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:56AM (#9377826)
          I am sick of hearing this "lone hacker theory" rubbish. Since anyone who works on the kernel is going to be constantly emailing, newsgrouping, and using IRC/IM there is no reason to label them as unsocialable.

          You think typing text characters into an e-mail or on IRC is the same as actually speaking to somebody in person right in front of you, staring them in the face?

          Just because you are using a computer to do the socialising doesn't make it count less than an afternoon at the pub with your workmates.

          Socializing on a computer isn't the same as socializing in person. Comparing it to an afternoon at the pub with your workmates his hilaroius. You may as well say you're actually "speaking" to me right now, and it's the same as if we actually ran into each other in person and started debating. Completely different. IM, IRC, and e-mail allow you to communicate with others without actually confronting them face to face.
          • You think typing text characters into an e-mail or on IRC is the same as actually speaking to somebody in person right in front of you, staring them in the face?

            Yes, you insensitive friggin' clod.

            I see no fucking difference. They are the same words, being sent to the same fucking people, just over a different medium. What you are saying is "you can't have a social life unless you meet face to face".

            I CALL BULLSHIT. I have more online friends than offline, and am quite happy that way.

            Socializing on a c

            • Re:You've got to be joking (Score:1, Insightful)

              by Anonymous Coward
              While you may find it hard to talk to people face to face, your over the internet ability appears to be lacking as well.
            • I doubt you'd be using so many f-words if you were speaking to someone face to face. If your communication online is similar to offline as you say, then it's just as well you do most of it here and not out there!
              • Yeah, I'm sorry, but this sort of thing gets under my skin. I've heard the same retarded crap all my life from people like that, and it's one of many things that really pisses me off. /no more rants :)

            • Re:You've got to be joking (Score:5, Insightful)

              by bonch ( 38532 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @12:55PM (#9379386)
              I have Asperger's syndrome. I find it hard to talk to people face to face. Over the Internet, it's much easier, and as I said above I have more online friends than offline.

              First, you illustrate the difference you have between face-to-face communication and faceless communication behind a keyboard. I'd love to see you calling someone an "insensitive friggin' clod" in person, complete with all your profanity.

              Don't give me the same retarded bullshit about it "not being the same thing"-it is.

              But then, you claim it's the same thing. If it's the same thing, why can't you talk to people face to face? Because it's not the same thing. With Asperger's, you should know that better than anyone.

              There is more to socialization than sending words to people. My point was that women excel in this area and prefer it to sitting alone all day behind a keyboard sending text to people, when they could be laughing, smiling, and expressing themselves face-to-face with other actual humans that aren't just little text names in IRC.

              I don't doubt that personal relationships can be formed over the Internet, but in most cases it's not the same kind of personal relationships that form between people who actually see each other and physically interact. It's how our brains work.
          • You can have meaningful relationships online, and you can have just as shallow interpersonal relationships offline as you can find online. As someone other than the poster you replied to, YES, I believe typing text characters into an e-mail or on IRC is more or less the same as actually speaking to somebody in person right in front of me, staring them in the face.

            Except that online, their physical appearance and the smell of their breath will have no impact on what I think of what they say, which in many

          • You think typing text characters into an e-mail or on IRC is the same as actually speaking to somebody in person right in front of you, staring them in the face?

            No, I think it is different, but it is still socialising and communicating. The medium is not the message. If you believe that you can only have relationships through either hearing the other person or seeing them then you are assuming that all the blind and deaf people in this world are incapable of relationships.

            Text communication, particularly o

        • Agreed.

          The ratio of female-to-male in IRC channels and MUDs is much higher than 2-to-400. So the "differently social" argument does not hold water.

          And university graduates, professors and researchers in technical endeavours are slowly filling their numbers with more women (although still far from 50/50 representation). So the "differently intelligent" does not account for the difference in participation, or at least is not the only factor.

          The reason for kernel hackers to be predominantly male has more to
      • I hate it when people see genetics as only a can or cannot do scenario. Perhaps taste is genetic and even if one sex is as good or better than the other at something perhaps they wouldn't want to do it in the first place.

        An example is that women aren't better at doing dishes, it is just than men are more likely to hate it for whatever genetic/memetic reason.

        ducks....

      • Women, by nature, are more social creatures

        I dont think that is the real connection. With all the desperate men out there, it is just a lot harder for a woman to still be a virgin a 20yr, unless it is a consious choice (still hard). In other words, they better things to do a friday night than hack on the linux-kernel.
        • So women are never desperate
          I'd say that if a women loses her virginity it is more a result of either her own desperation, or simply her own desire to do so
          Women can be desperate for emotional attachment (as can men) and will use their body to extort a feigned emotional sentiment from a partner. And some women might just want sex (as men most certinally do). The general attitude has been the men are always the sexual initators and that women are the submissive ones yet this attitude is changing as it obvi
          • Your theory has one problem, and one that has been shown statistically: Attractive men usually "date" more than one sexual partner at a time.

            Another interresting statistic (from the 70s though):
            About 10% of all men are still virgins then they die.

            So yes there is huge difference in virginity between men and women, especially around the end of the teenage-years. It helps somewhat when the woman reach the mid-20s are starts looking for other things than just appearence in men.
      • It could just be that nerdy males with fewer social skills tend to gravitate toward introverted tasks that don't require a lot of personal interaction with others.
        Sorry, but it's not that women don't like "introverted tasks". Loads of women like knitting, decorating and doing other kind of manual work that requires little to no interaction with other human beings.
        • Loads of women like knitting, decorating and doing other kind of manual work that requires little to no interaction with other human beings.

          Are you for real? If they knit, they prefer to knight in groups. If they're decorating, they're usually doing it with their friends, including the shopping for items beforehand. They even go to the bathroom in groups. By nature, women are social. You're actually arguing this? Have you even read any scientific research about it?

          For starters, there's a small part

          • Are you for real? If they knit, they prefer to knight in groups. If they're decorating, they're usually doing it with their friends, including the shopping for items beforehand. They even go to the bathroom in groups. By nature, women are social. You're actually arguing this? Have you even read any scientific research about it?

            I am for real. That is your image of women kitting and decorating. The ones I know do that at home, usually alone. I know quite a bunch of them, and I know they do it for the fun

        • ...between your username (Khazunga) and your tagline?

          If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
          • :-) Cool deduction, made me laugh, but nope. Khazunga was my nick when playing Descent, Rise of the Triad or Quake back in the University labs. There lies the accoustic connection. I'd KHAZUNG! my friends, which is way cooler than fragging them!

            The tagline is something I picked up somewhere, while I was reading The Dilbert Principle, where there is a story about a manager who decided that it is possible to make no mistakes in a copy-shop. Heck, if you can make one copy right, you can make 10,000 copies ri

      • >I've met plenty of women who blow me away

        I still do but lately ... oh well...

        >nerdy males with fewer social skills

        Social skills? What's that? It doesn't mean they exist only in person-to-person communication.
        Take a look at:
        http://www.psc.uc.edu/sh/SH_Social_Skills.ht m

        You'll see that by their definition people who live their lives online do have social skills.

        Also the page says that "a failure to learn adequate social skills can lead to feelings of isolation, loneliness, rejection, and poor self
    • I've met plenty of women who blow me away in science in math

      Actually, I'm married to one (my wife has a PhD), and my daughter is another (just graduated valedictorian of her high-school class with 1600 SAT). I'm a comparative slacker within my own family, but I'm still more of a hacker than my wife, or than my daughter will likely be (at least I hope she doesn't grow up to be as maladjusted as I am :)

    • I don't think that societal expectations, peer pressure, or discrimination can account for the 200-to-1 ratio in this case.

      In the nicest possible way, I don't care what you think. Opinions are like assholes. Sure, this is a datapoint, but to suggest that it implies on thing or another about societal versus genetic pressures is just a nonsense.

      Where's your evidence? What's your reasoning? How does the size of the sample affect the plausible distribution? Whats the null hypothesis?

      My all means expres

    • Some where down in the 7th section, the author too comments on this

      A simple economic theory of opportunity costs would therefore imply that women and men exist in two different economic spheres, or that women are paid much better for commercial software development than men.

      To gain mod points from the women on /. I would say the second reason is true

      (Karma be damned; I am no better than an AC anyway)
    • How you do keep US prisons clear of natives, because in Canada natives make up something like 70-80% of the prison population!

      Oh, you don't have as many natives, because you have black people in there? Why would black people commit crimes? Not very many black people are criminal in Canada. This is clearly an error on your prison system's part in assigning the blame to the wrong people, because all natives steal and all women can't write computer code!

      Go read "Black Like Me" before you start stereotypi
    • And I'm willing to bet the two chicks are only listed because they slept with someone, and threatened to tell his mom. "the day you sleep with a woman you move OUT of my basement young man!"

      Or because the compilers searched for ANY chicks to list to avoid claims of sexism - no matter how small their contribution.

      And remember folks. I'm 100% serious. Yes. Yes I am!
  • If the current trend in the "Figure 1: Number of people in the Credits file." graph keeps going then it's simply a matter of time before every inhabitent on this spinning ball called Earth is credited for conributing to the Linux kernel..

  • Patently and Blatently False... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He says there are no developers from india...IBM has at least a couple on hire over there....

    • Re:Patently and Blatently False... (Score:4, Informative)

      by leerpm ( 570963 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:41AM (#9377625)
      The credits file is not a listing of every single developer who has ever contributed a line of code or more. It is a list of those who have made significant contributions, and few who made relatively minor.

      Just because IBM set up a Linux lab in India, does not mean that lab is contributing in any significant way to the codebase of Linux, though they might be helping in other ways such using Linux at IBM.

    • Potential flamers please read (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:43AM (#9377651) Homepage Journal
      Those of you intending to point out that there are "very few" open source contributors from India (or largely developing countries) please take a moment to ponder and note that not every computer enthusiast in the world has the resources, means or relative luxury needed to actively contribute or even pursue a hobby.

      Most programmers from the developed countries (read US, Europe) take the computer/network resources and even their standard of living for granted. Computer prices and network acces in developing countries is still sparse and exorbitant for most people.

      Moreover, writing code for a hobby is at the back of the minds of most people, when their foremost worries are basic comforts needed for a comfortable life (read electricity, job, steady income, etc). It is only when a comfortable life is guaranteed, that a person has the luxury/option/motivation to pursue hobbies.

  • The real question is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TechnologyX ( 743745 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:32AM (#9377530) Journal
    "In July 2002, the Credits file contained information on 418 developers. With two exceptions, all were male "

    2 female types listed in the credits file? With contact information? Time to do a little research of my own...
    • Don't bother, both are probably taken. I can see it now...

      Male: "Honey, would you come here a minute and tell me why this is segfaulting?"
      Female: "Well here's the problem, you forgot to initialize here, this shouldn't be an assignment, and you're obviously locking the resources in the wrong order so you're facing a deadlock anyway."
      Male: "Can you fix it for me, sweetie? Star trek starts in 10."
      Female: Sigh
      ...

      -Adam
    • Of the 5 core developers of the VAX/VMS V1.0 kernel, 2 were female. Nancy Kronenberg and Cathy Morse if my memory serves me right. Alongside David Cutler, Richard Hustvedt and another Richard that went to Microsoft via Apple (Pink). Oops, maybe 6 developers - Andy Goldstein on the file system.
    • It says two exceptions, not two women. They're probably aliens, or dogs, or elder gods or something.
    • If only you had clicked on the little [1], after the sentence would you have realised that your search space can probably be larger.

      1. There are six names in the Credits file whose gender could not be verified by searches on the Internet or by asking other persons mentioned in the Credits file. As no information indicated that the persons in question would be female, I have made the assumption that they are males.

      The author I guess would be glad if you share the results of your research with him

      (Karma

  • That is virtuoso documentation of the methods used to analyse the documentation of the code credits.

    Someone that talented should be writing code.

  • looks like a good job... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by xot ( 663131 ) <fragiledeathNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:41AM (#9377631) Journal
    Thats a good job to have in the corporate IT world.Just make sure everyone gets credit... and you get paid!
    I would say just make sure the guy who pays you gets credit and everything else runs fine. :-)

  • The CREDITS file is not very accurate (Score:5, Informative)

    by mocm ( 141920 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @10:44AM (#9377663)
    The people in the CREDITS file are not all the people that work on the kernel. You should look at the Copyright notices in the source code.
    E.g. I am not in the CREDITS file (not that I need to be), but I have Copyright notices in over 30 files. I guess there are many more people working on parts of the linux kernel than are noticed in the CREDITS file.
    • Yes, the CREDITS file is not comprehensive, and (at least in 1998), the copyright notices were somewhat better but also not definitive.

      You might be interested in a (old, 1999) paper [uwaterloo.ca] on how you can use the CREDITS file to try to figure out how the Linux kernel interacts by looking at how developers work on different parts of the system.

      I think that the lack of definitiveness of the CREDITS file and copyright notices is very understandable given the way they are updated manually. It might be an argument f

  • Cue the feminists (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) <seebert42@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @11:22AM (#9378164) Homepage Journal
    During the evolution of Linux, new contributors have been continuously added to the file. In July 2002, the Credits file contained information on 418 developers. With two exceptions, all were male [1].

    Obviously Linux Kernal Development suffers from a serious lack of diversity. Time to get more young girls interested in kernal development. Perhaps we could have a "Female Kernal Developer" class required in the 6th grade....

  • Hold on there doggy. (Score:3, Funny)

    by cshark ( 673578 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @11:31AM (#9378278)
    Didn't microsoft just patent the process they're using to do this?

  • Trends (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ian Peon ( 232360 ) <ian AT epperson DOT com> on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @12:27PM (#9379086)
    Studies like this are interesting ways to spot trends. Note the levelling, then steep rise in US developers right around the time the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 seen in figure 2 [firstmonday.org]

    Anytime a large number of geeks have free time on their collective hands is good for the Linux kernel. Though, that shouldn't be a suprise to many here...

    • A quick glance at Figure 2 reveals that there does not seem to be any obvious slowdown in the growth rate of Linux developers in the U.S. during the Internet boom years.

      Though not contradictory, an opinion of the author of the article about the boom-time

      (Karma be damned; I am no better than an AC anyway)

  • How reliable? (Score:3, Informative)

    by vijaya_chandra ( 618284 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2004 @02:49PM (#9380830)
    Consider the following entry :

    N: Vijaya Chandra
    E: v@tachyontech.net
    W: http://www.tachyontech.net
    D: Stress Tester - /dev/null
    D: Stress Tester - /dev/random

    (You needn't wake up your grep. This entry has been discontinued in the post-0.x kernels)

    Tracerouting to tachyontech.net would tell you that I am in the UK, while only our web/pop servers are in england.

    'Chandra' can either be a male or a female. But the androgynous 'Vijaya' with the 'a' at the ending would score high towards females.

    I would be damnably pi*ed of to find myself considered as a female (unless of course I am thrown into the male-by-default group, which seems to be the case in the article) kernel developer from the UK

    So how reliable can the results of such an evaluation be??

    (Karma be damned; I am no better than an AC anyway)
  • Hmmmm, I found a kernel bug... in the CREDITS file:

    N: Leonard N. Zubkoff
    W: http://www.dandelion.com/Linux/
    D: BusLogic SCSI driver
    D: Mylex DAC960 PCI RAID driver
    D: Miscellaneous kernel fixes

    N: Alessandro Zummo
    E: azummo@ita.flashnet.it
    W: http://freepage.logicom.it/azummo/
    D: CMI8330 support is sb_card.c
    D: ISAPnP fixes in sb_card.c
    S: Italy

    N: Marc Zyngier
    E: maz@wild-wind.fr.eu.org
    W: http://www.misterjones.org
    D: MD driver
    D: EISA/sysfs subsystem
    S: France

    # Don't add your name here, unless you really _are_ af

  • Anybody know what program was used to make those graphs? They look like Excel, which would be hilariously ironic for analysing the Linux kernel. Of course, a lot of things look like excel...
  • In his in depth paper

    That should be "in-depth paper" to avoid ambiguity. More on compound words. [getitwriteonline.com]

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