Kernel development statistics for 2.6.34 and beyond

"As of this writing, the current kernel prepatch is 2.6.34-rc6. A couple more prepatches are most likely due before the final release, but the number of changes to be found there should be small. In other words, 2.6.34 is close to its final form, so it makes sense to take a look at what has gone into this development cycle. In a few ways, 2.6.34 is an unusual kernel.

"This kernel has seen the addition of 9100 non-merge changesets from just over 1100 developers. That makes it somewhat smaller than its predecessors, as can be seen in this table:

    Kernel Patches Devs
    2.6.29      11,600  1170
    2.6.30      11,700  1130
    2.6.31      10,600  1150
    2.6.32      10,800  1230
    2.6.33      10,500  1150
    2.6.34      9,100   1110

"Developer participation in this development cycle was slightly lower than the usual, but not in any significant way. But, it seems, those developers had a bit less than usual that they needed to get done. One might be tempted to chalk that up to the shorter-than-usual merge window at the beginning of this cycle, but the fact of the matter is that Linus let enough new material in after 2.6.34-rc1 to make the merge window effectively as long as it ever was."

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