Re: Move to a cadence release model?

[Xue Fuqiao]

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Xue Fuqiao <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 11:48 PM, Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Hi Eli,
>
>>> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2015 07:50:14 +0800
>>> From: Xue Fuqiao <address@hidden>
>>> Cc: Emacs-devel <address@hidden>, John Yates <address@hidden>
>>>
>>> Some examples of this model are Linux (a new release every few months,
>>> although there is a separate set of "stable" branches), Firefox (a new
>>> release every six weeks), Chromium (roughly the same as Firefox), and
>>> LibreOffice (six monthly releases).
>>
>> I think we can only have useful discussions of those other models if
>> they are not just mentioned, but described in some detail.  Relevant
>> details IMO include the number of active developers, the number of
>> gatekeepers and/or people actively involved in the patch review
>> process, some statistics about the commit rate, etc.  Only armed with
>> those details can we reason whether any of those models are applicable
>> to Emacs, and what would be the prerequisites of each model.  E.g.,
>> people talk about reviewing patches, pull requests, gerrit, etc., but
>> we don't even _have_ a patch review process per se.
>
> OK.  Here are some relevant details I found.  According to Black Duck
> Open Hub[1]:
>
> Linux has
> * 705 contributors and 3926 commits in the last 30 days
> * 3826 contributors and 68190 commits in the last 12 months
> * 1000+ maintainers[2]
>
> Firefox has
> * 396 contributors and 4558 commits in the last 30 days
> * 1180 contributors and 56950 commits in the last 12 months
> * About 30 gatekeepers[3]
>
> Chromium has
> * 909 contributors and 11410 commits in the last 30 days
> * 2457 contributors and 61454 commits in the last 12 months
> * (I have not yet counted the number of reviewers in Chromium.  They are
>   listed in the dir/OWNERS files of the source code.)
>
> OpenStack has
> * 321 contributors and 2312 commits in the last 30 days
> * 1757 contributors and 40212 commits in the last 12 months
> * (I don't know the number of people actively involved in the patch
>   review process in OpenStack.)
>
> Finally, Emacs has
> * 40 contributors and 319 commits in the last 30 days
> * 200 contributors and 4244 commits in the last 12 months
> * Less than 10 people actively involved in code review[4]

Sorry, I inadvertently omitted LibreOffice.

LibreOffice has
* 81 contributors and 1871 commits in the last 30 days
* 277 contributors and 19617 commits in the last 12 months
* (I don't know the number of people actively involved in the patch
  review process in LibreOffice.)