Whilst commit numbers aren't a perfect measure of anything whatsoever, they do still provide a good indication of whether a project is healthy or faltering. It's useful to keep an eye on them, and the start of the year is a good time to do that.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at http://blog.davidedmundson.co.uk/blog/i-measured-kdes-commit-stats-and-the-results-surprised-me/