… and statistics. Last week, I took a python script that I had written some time ago for
CodeYard, modified it a bit and
analysed some recent KDE subversion logs. I’ve taken a look at the number of commits in
the KDE 4.0 branch, and a bit in trunk/. I’ve also compared number of authors and commits
to the KDE and GNOME Subversion repositories since 2004. I’m discussing my findings below.
Of course, being Free Software, research and all, I’ve put up the script and data so you
can run with it and create your own reality.
This graph shows number of commits and authors in trunk since KDE 4.0.0 has been tagged. We see the this
number is quite a bit higher than even the sum of bugfix and translation commits that has gone into the
4.0 branch. That, I think does reflect well that main development is taking place in trunk (no surprise
there), and that trunk is probably quite a bit ahead (in terms of instability? :)) compared to
4.0-branch.
I do not quite understand the high number of commits in the 4.0-branch. I’ve fed the log starting with
rev 757456 until HEAD to the script. I would’ve expected the number to be roughly the sum of 4.0.1,
4.0.2 and 4.0.3 logs. I wouldn’t be surprised if there a bug in my datacollection
script. Email me if
you know what’s going on there.
KDE and GNOME Compared
This graph gives a long-term impression of the number of commits and distinct authors per month in
both, KDE and GNOME subversion repositories. Some observations:
- KDE and GNOME are pretty similar in size
- Only recently (roughly since the beginning of 2007, there’s a real
difference in the number of commits - Since the beginning 2007, the number of KDE commits has grown by ~20%
- Lately, there seems to be more difference in the monthly numbers for GNOME
- Because the numbers have been so close to each other, it’s looks like we’re not competing,
but that what’s good for one is good for the other. So having GNOME doing well suggests that the
climate for KDE is also friendlier. This has been less evident lately, however. - The number of rises close to their six-monthly releases
- As of lately, the number of KDE commits is higher than the number of GNOME commits, GNOME has
slightly more distinct authors monthly - There is certainly no exponential growth in the number of Free Desktop developers. If we
believe these number which obviously(*1) do not include third party authors (*1) not
as long as I define “third party authors” as “those not developing their software in KDE’s and
GNOME’s SVN repos” anyway :-)
Of course you’re free to interpret those numbers in your own way, the above is just what I can
come up with when looking at those numbers. I’ve also put up the OpenDocument file with the raw
data in it, so you can play around with it in a similar fashion. Find it
here and show us your
interpretation of reality ;-)
KDE 4.0 Branch
Here we see the number of commits to the KDE 4.0 branch in Subversion. Two things are striking:
- The 4.0 branch is calming down. Reasons are probably that the
more obvious bugs are fixed, and that more developers have switched
to using trunk/ that is going to become 4.1 this summer. I would have
expected such a trend. - KHTML and KWin people are doing really well (and “Plasma-Ruphy” in 4.0.2), this is also reflected
in recent changelogs. It doesn’t say a lot about development progress,
since the 4.0 branch is focusing bugfixes and performance improvements.