Uncovering the Mysteries of the Linux Kernel

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the MAX in Portland, heading back to my hotel after an... interesting post-OSCON party hosted by Sun. (Sumo wrestler suits? Really?) I was riding the train with a friend who lives downtown and I was explaining to her just exactly what my new job with the Linux Foundation was and what we wanted to do with the Linux Developer Network.

There are several examples I used of why LDN is such a personal big deal for me. I have long wanted to have a centralized focus on documentation and tools for the Linux community in general, and having such a site for developers is a huge step in the right direction. The need for such a site is clear. While Linux is a free and open operating system, often times it is so free that no one bothers to put up road signs. The assumption is that you can wander into the party, get the lay of the land, and eventually find the people and the information you are looking for.

And, without doubt, this is very true, if time is not an issue. Any developer worth their salt can code for the Linux kernel, for example--but it may take a while to figure out to whom they should send their code and how the submittal process works.

That was the example I used on the train: if you were an ISV with a potential add on to Linux kernel, how would you submit it? To a commercial distro? To a community distro? Or directly to someone on the Linux kernel mailing list?

Obviously, the answer depends on a lot of factors, not the least of which is what exactly did you code? And so forth. This, I said, was one of the scenarios that the LDN hoped to guide readers through.

So, I was pleasantly surprised that someone had already been working on addressing this particular situation before I even came on board. Linux kernel contributor Jonathan Corbet released a new report last week: "How to Participate in the Linux Community," just in time for the LDN beta launch. Jonathan is a well-known expert in the Linux development community, having co-authored Linux Device Drivers and running this really great news site... wait, what it's called...? Oh, yeah, LWN.net. :)

According to Jonathan's own introduction, "the purpose of this document is to help developers (and their managers) work with the development community with a minimum of frustration. It is an attempt to document how this community works in a way which is accessible to those who are not intimately familiar with Linux kernel development (or, indeed, free software development in general). While there is some technical material here, this is very much a process-oriented discussion which does not require a deep knowledge of kernel programming to understand."

This isn't some quick-read article, either. Jonathan has used his deep knowledge of the kernel development process to loay out a detailed guide to getting things developed for the Linux kernel specifically, and free and open source projects in general. This is an invaluable resource for developers and managers alike, and one that I'm glad to inlcude in the LDN resources.