deltrittennovels Chapter 382 Starfire System Technology
Chapter 382 Starfire System Technology
January 5th was bitterly cold, around seven or eight degrees below zero, with a biting wind blowing from the north. When Ling Yun got out of the car, he hunched his shoulders and turned up the collar of his coat.
The office building is a five-story gray structure located in Jinan High-tech Zone. They just moved in last autumn. A sign hangs at the entrance: Xinghuo System Technology, white background with blue lettering, evoking a sense of blue skies and white clouds. The lobby is well-heated; pushing open the door, a wave of heat hits you.
The receptionist was a young woman wearing a dark blue uniform and with her hair tied in a ponytail. Seeing him enter, she stood up and said, "Mr. Ling, you've arrived. Mr. Wang is in a meeting on the third floor; I'm just letting him know." Ling Yun nodded and walked towards the elevator. "I'll go directly to the meeting room to find him!"
The elevator doors opened, revealing two young men inside, each holding a coffee and talking. They stepped aside when they saw him. He entered and pressed the button for the third floor. The elevator doors closed, and the two men fell silent. Reaching the third floor, he stepped out. The corridor was carpeted with thick, gray carpet that made no sound underfoot. Several whiteboards hung on the walls, covered with code, flowcharts, and architecture diagrams. The handwriting was messy, some in black pen, some corrected in red. He glanced at them, didn't stop, and continued walking.
The conference room door was open. Wang Jianguo stood in front of the whiteboard, holding a marker and drawing something. Hearing footsteps, he turned around and put the marker down. He was wearing a dark gray sweater with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and there was dust on his glasses, probably from when he was drawing. "President Ling," he said, walking over and shaking hands.
Ling Yun sat down at the long table, and Wang Jianguo sat down opposite him. Several documents were spread out on the table, along with an open laptop with the Spark Open Source Community page on its screen. He turned the laptop around for Ling Yun to see.
"The number of registered users in the community just surpassed 100,000 this morning, 100,327." He pointed to the number in the upper right corner of the screen. "Three months ago it was 30,000, so it has tripled. Git is now widely used in the development community."
"It's not just used domestically; it's used internationally, in the US, Europe, Japan, and India. Download statistics from the open-source community show that Git's downloads have surpassed CVS this month. CVS has been around for ten years, while Git has only been around for one. It's not that we're so great; it's just that it's genuinely easy to use. Distributed version control, fast branch switching, and convenient merging. Once you've used it, you can't go back. CVS is too old, SVN can't keep up, centralized architecture, server dependence, slow creation, and poor performance. Git is the future."
Ling Yun looked at the screen and scrolled down. The page displayed a list of community projects. First was the Starry Sky System Kernel, with 470,000 downloads. Second was the Starry Sky Browser, with 230,000 downloads. Third was Git, with 180,000 downloads. Below that were various tool libraries, drivers, and applications, densely packed together. He looked up at Wang Jianguo and asked, "How many people are active in the community?"
Wang Jianguo said, "Daily active users are about 12,000, and monthly active users are about 80,000. These people don't just download; they actually do the work. They report bugs, modify code, write documentation, and reply to posts. Last month, there were more than 1,300 pieces of code submitted to the community. Our own team submitted about 300 pieces. The remaining 1,000 pieces were all written by community members. The quality varies, but most of them are usable. We have people specifically reviewing them; the good ones are merged in, and the bad ones are returned for modification."
Lingyun asked him, "What's with that paid PR deal?"
Wang Jianguo picked up a document from the table and handed it to Ling Yun. It was a printed document, several pages stapled together. The cover read "List of Technical Breakthrough Projects of the Spark Open Source Community." Ling Yun opened it; the first page was a table listing project names, difficulty levels, bounties, status, and responsible persons. He glanced at it.
Project 1: Memory Management Optimization under ARM Architecture. Difficulty: Level A, Bounty: 50,000. Status: Completed. Project Leader: Li Mo.
Project Two: Reconstruction of the Star System Power Management Module. Difficulty Level A, Bounty 50,000. Status: Completed. Project Leader: Community User 'kernel_hacker'.
Project 3: ARM Platform Graphics Driver Optimization. Difficulty: B. Reward: 20,000. Status: In Progress. Project Leader: Community User 'gpu_guy'.
Project 4: Wireless Network Card Driver Porting. Difficulty: B. Reward: 20,000. Status: Completed. Project Leader: Community User 'wifi_fan'.
Project 5: x86 version startup speed optimization. Difficulty: C level, Bounty: 5,000. Status: Completed. Project Leader: Community user 'boot_master'.
He flipped through the file; there were forty-seven projects in total: seven Grade A, fifteen Grade B, and twenty-five Grade C. Thirty-two were completed, twelve were in progress, and three remained unclaimed. He closed the file and placed it on the table. Looking at Wang Jianguo, he asked, "Has all the money been paid?"
Wang Jianguo said, "Payment is made. Once the project is completed and the code passes review, payment is made directly. No delays, no debts, no questions asked who you are or where you come from. If the code works, it works; if not, it doesn't. If it works, you get paid; if not, you get a refund. People in the community say this is the most straightforward client they've ever met. Some people who were laid off and unemployed take on jobs in the community. Last month, a programmer took on three projects and earned 80,000 yuan. He said he earned more than he did at his job."
Ling Yun asked him, "Where is this person now?"
Wang Jianguo said, "He's in Xi'an. He used to work for a software company in Xi'an, but the company went bankrupt. He stayed at home for two months, unable to find work. Later, he saw our community online, registered an account, and tried taking on a C-level job for 5,000 yuan. After finishing it, he was paid. He then took on a B-level job for 20,000 yuan. After finishing it, he was paid again. Now he only takes on jobs in the community and doesn't look for work anymore. He says that being self-employed is more flexible and pays more. He even recruited two people to work with him, forming a small team. They specialize in taking on our jobs."
"What's the situation with the Spark system? What's the status of the x86 and ARM versions?"
Wang Jianguo picked up another document from the table, opened it, and began to read: "x86 version, version 2.4 was released last month. The kernel has been updated, the drivers have been updated, and compatibility has been improved. User feedback is good, and the stability is better than the previous version."
"The installed base is around five million. Domestically, the majority are users, including the education system, government agencies, and corporate offices. There are also some overseas users, but not many, mainly developers. The ARM version was released as version 1.2 last month. Performance has been optimized, and power consumption has been reduced a bit. Battery life has been increased from eight hours to nine hours."
"They're using it on Alienware laptops, and the feedback is good. The Starlight laptop will be released next month, pre-installed with version 1.2 for education. The installed base is expected to be around 100,000 units, mainly development boards and test machines; we haven't started deploying it to real users yet."