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20130918-2 选题
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Android-Friendly Linux Code Gets Big Boost From Mobile Companies
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There was a time — not so long ago — when Google’s Android was [decidedly not Linux][1].
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Google hackers modified the Linux kernel to build their dream mobile operating system, but the changes they made weren’t getting picked up by the folks who ran the Linux kernel project. But early last year, Google and the Linux community patched things up, and according to a new analysis of the Linux kernel, it shows.
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Last year, contributions from mobile companies accounted for just 4.4 percent of the Linux kernel, according to the Linux Foundation’s annual survey of Linux contributions. Now, it’s more like 11 percent.
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And Google itself has jumped from Linux’s number-10 code contributor to number eight. Back in 2009, Google ranked number 19. The top three companies are (in order) Red Hat, Intel, and Texas Instruments.
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Last year, Microsoft was a top contributor, but it has faded away now that it’s completed most of the work to make its Hyper-V virtualization software work with Linux.
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Then kernel came under fire earlier this year for fostering a communications style that some call plainspoken, others abusive. That came to a head when Intel developer Sarah Sharp [called out Linux leader Linus Torvalds][2] on the Kernel mailing list. She [told us later that][3] Linuxland sometimes fosters a culture that “just doesn’t work for people who aren’t men.”
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Sharp estimates that between 1 and 3 percent kernel developers are women. Whether that number is growing or shrinking, though, we don’t know. The Linux Foundation data doesn’t track the gender or race of Linux contributors.
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via: http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/09/linux/
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本文由 [LCTT][] 原创翻译，[Linux中国][] 荣誉推出
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译者：[译者ID][] 校对：[校对者ID][]
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[LCTT]:https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject
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[Linux中国]:http://linux.cn/portal.php
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[译者ID]:http://linux.cn/space/译者ID
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[校对者ID]:http://linux.cn/space/校对者ID
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[1]:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/googles-android-fork-defended-debated-dissected-again/7067
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[2]:http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/linus-torvalds-right-to-offend/
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[3]:http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/07/sarah_sharp/
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How Linux defenders attack bad software patents before they’re approved
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================================================================================
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Group identifies dangerous patents and tries to cut them down to size.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Despite the rise in the number of patent trolls launching lawsuits affecting open source software, there are some glimmers of hope. The America Invents Act that was signed into law in September 2011 has provided new ways to prevent the issuance of over-broad software patents that could fuel future lawsuits.
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In a session at LinuxCon today, [Linux Defenders][1] director Andrea Casillas explained how the group is using rights granted by the new law to fight patent applications. A project of the Open Invention Network, Software Freedom Law Center, and Linux Foundation, Linux Defenders examines the 6,000 new patent applications published each week, attempting to identify those that are potentially threatening to Linux and open source. Then, the group looks for prior art that would invalidate at least some of the claims in the patents.
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The next step is working with Linux technologists to file defensive publications, which are not patents themselves but describe an invention and place it in the public record, preventing new patents from being granted that cover the same technology. These are typically two- to three-page descriptions of the technology, which the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiners can read when conducting their review of prior art that might invalidate or limit the scope of a new patent application. Linux Defenders has filed about 200 of these defensive publications.
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"We'll work with authors or inventors or developers to take submissions, edit them, and work hand in hand with them to make these publications more effective," Casillas said, urging the Linux community to help the group identify dangerous patents and find prior art.
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Defensive publications are an old strategy, but it's become more accessible to the public because of the America Invents Act, Casillas explained. "This is the first time examiners have welcomed the public interaction," she said. "Any individual can electronically submit up to three pieces of prior art at no cost per application."
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Linux Defenders has filed defensive publications related to patent applications from Microsoft, Apple, and others. Generally, Casillas said defensive publications aren't going to force a company to abandon a patent application. Rather, they might force the company to limit the scope of the patent application's claims.
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When asked if Linux Defenders could name examples of patent applications that were limited because of this process, Casillas and her colleagues said they're still working on a method of measuring its effectiveness. Within 6 to 9 months, they expect to implement a tool that lets them track when patent examiners use the defensive publications in the patent review process.
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Linux Defenders also targets patents that have already been issued, but Casillas noted that the legal standard for invalidating patents after they're awarded is very high.
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**One patent lawsuit “could make Red Hat go away”**
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In a separate session at LinuxCon yesterday, Red Hat's Fedora engineering manager Tom Callaway discussed legal threats to open source.
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Red Hat has criticized patent trolls and taken many steps to [protect itself and its customers from them][2]. Callaway said the threat can't be understated. "I do not overestimate this. Red Hat is not a small company in our industry, in open source. We're possibly the biggest. One good loss at trial on a serious set of patents could make Red Hat go away. It would be gone. That's the seriousness of patents and that's how chilling they are on our industry," he said.
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In all likelihood, Red Hat isn't going anywhere. The company has a good track record defending itself and its customers in court against patent trolls. It indemnifies customers against lawsuits as part of its software subscription program, and it has built up a portfolio of defensive patents.
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While paid subscriptions to Red Hat Enterprise Linux entitle customers to extra protection, Red Hat is also working on making sure Fedora—which costs users nothing—is protected from legal trouble. The company does that by analyzing all the code and making sure every piece is licensed properly, sometimes removing and replacing problematic code. This has negative consequences for the software. "We have this problem a lot in Fedora. Patents keep us from doing the things that we want to do," Callaway said.
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In a recent case involving Rackspace and Red Hat, a company called Uniloc tried to get money from Rackspace for using Red Hat's Linux-based servers. Uniloc's case was thrown out, with the judge saying its patent claim is invalid because it describes a relatively simple math operation.
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But defending those cases costs money, and even Red Hat has occasionally paid money to patent trolls to settle cases without going to trial.
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Callaway expressed frustration about over-broad patents. Some patents are "so vague they could mean anything," he said. "They could be applied to almost anything, and the patent trolls are betting on that, that you won't fight it."
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**Helping patent examiners identify bad patents**
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Those over-broad patents, again, are what Linux Defenders is trying to stop. Vague patents often get approved in part because patent examiners spend no more than 20 hours on each application, Casillas said.
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The amount of time is "pretty staggering considering how long the process takes and how important the issuance of a patent can be," she said. The 20 hours "includes going through the application, making sure it complies with formatting, your basic legal requirements, but also determining the scope of the invention."
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The examiner spends about seven to eight hours searching for prior art, whether in the form of patents or other publicly available descriptions of technology, she said.
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By submitting defensive publications, complete with tags making them more easily discoverable by patent examiners, Linux Defenders hopes to make the USPTO more effective.
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"We're not adding to their increasing workload," Casillas said. "We're helping them with these relevant publications."
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via: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/how-linux-defenders-attack-software-patents-before-theyre-approved/
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本文由 [LCTT][] 原创翻译，[Linux中国][] 荣誉推出
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译者：[译者ID][] 校对：[校对者ID][]
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[LCTT]:https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject
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[Linux中国]:http://linux.cn/portal.php
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[译者ID]:http://linux.cn/space/译者ID
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[校对者ID]:http://linux.cn/space/校对者ID
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[1]:http://linuxdefenders.org/
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[2]:http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/050511-red-hat-ceo-patents.html
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Linux development by the numbers: Big and getting bigger
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The open-source operating system project is steadily growing through any number of measurements: programmers, updates, and changes per hour.
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The number of developers creating Linux has steadily increased from version 3.0, released July 21, 2011, to version 3.10, released June 30, 2013.
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(Credit: data from Linux Foundation; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
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Linux is growing -- that we knew. Now we know how fast.
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In the last two years, the number of developers who collectively create Linux has increased from 1,131 with version 3.0 in July 2011 to 1,392 with version 3.10, released in June 2013, according to the Linux Foundation's latest [annual Linux development report][1]. Also on the rise: the lines of code in the project, the number of changes accepted into each new version, and the frequency at which those changes arrive.
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"This rate of change continues to increase, as does the number of developers and companies involved in the process; thus far, the development process has proved that it is able to scale up to higher speeds without trouble," the study concluded.
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Linux is a mammoth project, and it's getting bigger as it spreads to new hardware. It's grown to nearly 17 million lines of code with version 3.10.
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(Credit: data from Linux Foundation; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
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Linux -- technically just the kernel at the heart of the open-source operating system that often goes by the same name -- has never attained the kind of widespread consumer recognition of OSes like Windows and iOS. Nevertheless, its clout continues to increase: it powers everything from Facebook's mammoth data centers to Google's Android.
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That utility is reflected in statistics published roughly annually by the [Linux Foundation][2], the organization that employs Linux creator and overseer Linus Torvalds among others; the foundation published its September 2013 report Friday. The foundation tracks statistics using the Git source-code management tool that Torvalds wrote when unsatisfied with the earlier options. It's no Linux, but Git now has spread far and wide, too, as more and more discovered its utility at managing programming projects distributed among many developers.
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Linux itself is probably the best example of such a widespread project. The recent version 3.10 of the kernel, released June 30, 2013, drew updates from 1,392 developers at 243 companies. That's up from 1,131 developers at 191 companies for version 3.0, released July 21, 2011.
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The Linux Foundation listed the top companies that contribute to the Linux kernel.
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(Credit: Linux Foundation)
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"Since the beginning of the git era (the 2.6.11 release in 2005), a total of 9,784 developers have contributed to the Linux kernel," the report said.
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That breadth isn't evenly distributed, of course: a small number of programmers produce much of the code patches that are applied to the kernel and vice-versa.
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"In any given development cycle, approximately one third of the developers involved contribute exactly one patch," the report said. "Since the 2.6.11 release, the top ten developers have contributed 30,420 changes -- 8.4 percent of the total. The top 30 developers contributed just over 18 percent of the total."
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Two years ago, 191 companies contributed to the creation of Linux. Now it's up to 243, though the peak was 298 companies with version 3.6 in September 2012.
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(Credit: data from Linux Foundation; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
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Some people think of open-source software as a hobbyist phenomenon, and there's plenty of that, to be sure. But the vast majority of Linux work is done by paid professionals these days.
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In terms of patches accepted into Linux, the top 10 contributors are Red Hat, Intel, Texas Instruments, Linaro, SUSE, IBM, Samsung, Google, Vision Engraving Systems, and Wolfson Microelectronics. Among other developments, mobile technology companies including Texas Instruments, Samsung, Google, and Qualcomm have a serious presence, support for 64-bit ARM processors arrived over the last year, and spat between Google's Android team and other kernel programmers was resolved.
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With each passing hour, an average of 9 updates were applied to version 3.10 of the Linux kernel.
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(Credit: data from Linux Foundation; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
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One big contributor in 2012 was Microsoft, which submitted 688 patches so that Windows could get along with Linux in virtualization environments -- a technology where a single computer runs multiple operating systems atop a lower-level OS. It's a widely used approach in the server market to achieve greater hardware efficiency. Apparently Microsoft considers the work done, though, because it dropped off the list of contributors for the 2013 report.
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Although new kernels arrive about every two months, a few of them get long-term two-year support with fixes for bugs and security problems. Those versions -- 3.0, 3.4, and 3.10 in the last two years -- are typically the foundation of commercial products.
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The total number of changes accepted into each version of the Linux kernel continues to grow.
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(Credit: data from Linux Foundation; chart by Stephen Shankland/CNET)
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via: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57603216-94/linux-development-by-the-numbers-big-and-getting-bigger/
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本文由 [LCTT][] 原创翻译，[Linux中国][] 荣誉推出
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译者：[译者ID][] 校对：[校对者ID][]
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[LCTT]:https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject
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[Linux中国]:http://linux.cn/portal.php
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[译者ID]:http://linux.cn/space/译者ID
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[校对者ID]:http://linux.cn/space/校对者ID
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[1]:http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2013/09/linux-foundation-releases-annual-linux-development-report
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[2]:http://www.linuxfoundation.org/
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