Linux Kernel

Mature, well-established codebase

The first lines of source code were added to Linux Kernel in 2005. Projects with recent activity, and a code base more than five years old are likely solving vital problems and delivering consistent value, and may be organized to reward sustained effort by an engaged team of contributors.

Such a lengthy source control history in conjunction with recent activity may indicate that this code base and community are important enough to attract long-term commitment, and may also indicate a mature and relatively bug-free code base.

Note: The source code for Linux Kernel might actually be older than the source control history can reveal. Many new projects begin by incorporating a large amount of source code from existing, older projects. You might be able to tell whether this is the case by looking for a rapid rise in the amount of code early in the project's history.

Very large, active development team

Over the past twelve months, 2208 developers contributed new code to Linux Kernel. This is one of the largest open-source teams in the world, and is in the top 2% of all project teams on Open Hub.

For this measurement, Open Hub considers only recent changes to the code. Over the entire history of the project, 27786 developers have contributed.

Few source code comments

Linux Kernel is written mostly in C.

Across all C projects on Open Hub, 18% of all source code lines are comments.

This lack of comments puts Linux Kernel among the lowest one-third of all C projects on Open Hub.

A high number of comments might indicate that the code is well-documented and organized, and could be a sign of a helpful and disciplined development team.

Decreasing Y-O-Y development activity

Over the last twelve months, Linux Kernel has seen a substantial decrease in development activity. This could mean many things. It may be a warning sign that interest in this project is waning, or it may indicate a maturing code base that requires fewer fixes and changes. It is also possible that development on this project has moved to a new source control repository somewhere else.

Open Hub makes this determination by comparing the total number of commits made by all developers during the most recent twelve months with the same figure for the prior twelve months. The number of developers and total lines of code are not considered.