Linux creator Linus Torvalds said at LinuxCon this week that Linux is “getting bloated” and that “it’s a problem.”
“I’d love to say we have a plan,” he lamented. “I mean, sometimes it’s a bit sad and we’re definitely not the streamlined hyper-efficient kernel that I had envisioned 15 years ago….The kernel is huge and bloated, and our icache footprint is scary. I mean there’s no question about that.”
Linux Foundation chief Jim Zemlin thinks “bloated for a good reason” would be a “more accurate quote” since Linux is now asked to do so many multi-purpose high-caloric things, but that’s not what Linus said or apparently meant because he also said that every time a feature is added to the kernel the problem gets worse, robbing Linux’ followers of one of the brickbats they throw at Microsoft.
According to an Intel study Linux performance has dropped about 2% with every release. That makes 12% over the last 10 releases.
Something like 10,923 lines of code are added to the Linux kernel every day, adding up to 2.7 million in the last year, whereas 5,547 are deleted every day.