More developers are contributing more code to the development of Linux, and are speeding up in the process, according to a new study from the Linux Foundation. The latest "Who Writes Linux" report is now its second year, tracking the development of Linux from the 2.6.24 kernel to the recent 2.6.30 kernel release.

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced it is publishing an update to its April 2008 study on Linux kernel development. The new report is written by original authors and kernel developers Jonathan Corbet and Greg Kroah-Hartman, and the Linux Foundation's Amanda McPherson

Last week when releasing the Linux 2.6.35-rc2 kernel, Linus was upset with the number of late merges and other commits that were receiving pull requests in the Linux 2.6.35 kernel development cycle when the work should instead be now about bug and regression fixes.

Linus Torvalds seems to be trying very hard to make the latest Linux kernel update as boring as possible. Reading this release announcement, if we can even call it that, you'd never imagine that Torvalds was leading the evolution of software.

A few days ago I received the latest issue of Linux Journal Magazine. I must admit that one of the sections I look forward to reading is diff -u. This section summarizes the latest updates and discussions of the Linux kernel development community.

Remember the offer Greg Kroah-Hartman made earlier this year, to get Linux drivers written for free for any company that wanted them?

Way back in April 2008, the Linux Foundation published a little report that upended a lot of perceptions about Linux development. Now, they've done it again. The report in question — Linux Kernel Development: How Fast it is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It? — revealed a number of things about the Linux kernel.

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.

The Open Source Automation Development Lab (OSADL) announced the release of the "Latest Stable" Linux mainline real-time kernel, based on Linux 2.6.31. The "PREEMPT RT"-based release will be demonstrated on Mar. 2-4 at Embedded World 2010 in Nuremberg, Germany, which offers a number of sessions on Linux and Android development.