“Tony Luck offered some statistics focused on the frequency of
developers that only contribute to the Linux kernel one time, ‘I
skimmed through looking for drive-by contributors (defined as
someone who contributes to just one release and is then never heard
from again).’ Starting with the 2.6.11 kernel, he suggested the
following numbers: ’63 [developers contributed patches] in version
2.6.11 [and then were] never seen again, 148 in version 2.6.12, 128
in version 2.6.13, 92 in version 2.6.14, 96 in version 2.6.15, 122
in version 2.6.16, 137 in version 2.6.17, 140 in version 2.6.18,
135 in version 2.6.19, 95 in version 2.6.20, 136 in version 2.6.21,
153 in version 2.6.22, 179 in version 2.6.23, 179 in version
2.6.24, and 304 in version 2.6.25…'”