[ANNOUNCE] xorg-server 1.8.99.904

[Fernando Carrijo]

Tiago Vignatti <tiago.vignatti at nokia.com> wrote:

> If I have more motivation I'll try to get some stats comparing different
> versions of the server development and maybe other modules. Also, if you are
> interested on different kind of statistics I can run more. Suggestions are
> very welcome and appreciated (for instance fixing contributor <-> company)!

A year or so ago, someone pointed me out a PhD dissertation in which a
researcher studied how relevant were individual contributors to open source
projects when contrasted against paid developers. Google didn't help me at all
to locate her thesis, but I remember that among the quoted accomplishments was
the gathering of evidences in favor of the fact that most architecture-related
changes submitted to OSS projects were perpetrated by paid people.

I have some resistance to accept the supposition that X could live without the
ongoing support of heavyweight companies for they usually hire the developers
ultimately responsible for the design decisions which allow the software to
evolve.

For sure the information contained in git logs don't measure how high-level the
changes are being submitted, but it would be nice to devise some metrics, apart
from the usual LOC, which could help us visualize the architectural impact
caused by the big players.