Linux in 2013: ‘Freakishly awesome’ – and who needs a fork?

DcData AdminPublic

Features, performance, security, stability: pick, er, four

LCS2013 If there was a theme for Day One of the Linux Foundation’s seventh annual Linux Collaboration Summit, taking place this week in San Francisco, it was that the Linux community has moved way, way past wondering whether the open source OS will be successful and competitive.

“Today I wanted to talk about the state of Linux,” Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, began his opening keynote on Monday. “I’m just going to save everybody 30 minutes. The state of Linux is freakishly awesome.”

Zemlin said that each day some 10,519 lines of code are added to the Linux kernel, while another 6,782 lines are subtracted from it. All told, the kernel averages around 7.38 changes per hour – a phenomenal rate for any code base.

Zemlin went on to liken Linux to a multi-million dollar R&D project, on which over 400 companies collaborate – some of which, at the same time, are fierce competitors.

“This incredible platform is now more than just an operating system. Linux is really now becoming a fundamental part of society – one of the greatest shared technology resources known to man,” Zemlin said.

He added, “I mean, it runs all of our stock markets, most of our air-traffic control systems, internet, phones, you name it … most of the world’s telecommunications systems … this is really now beyond a movement and an operating system, this is now this real, shared, societal, important piece of work.”

Full story