Re: Move to a cadence release model?

[Xue Fuqiao]

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]

Footnotes:

[1] https://www.openhub.net/
[2] https://www.kernel.org/doc/linux/MAINTAINERS
[3] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Firefox
[4] My impression: Dmitry Gutov, Glenn Morris, Michael Albinus, Stefan
    Monnier, Artur Malabarba, and you.