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Who's developing Linux?
Quite a while ago, Linux Kernel development was largely being done by academicians, hobbyists and a very few representatives of corporations. As the paper points out, that is no longer the case. The top ten contributors include companies such as Red Hat, IBM, Novell, Intel and the like.
From time to time, Nick Carr of Red Hat, and I have a conversation about the state of things. During this discussion, he mentioned a very interesting Linux Foundation paper titled Linux Kernel Development How Fast it is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It: An August 2009 Update.
Quite a while ago, Linux Kernel development was largely being done by academicians, hobbyists and a very few representatives of corporations. As the paper points out, that is no longer the case. Here's a list of the top 10 contributors to the Linux Kernel.
| Company | Percent of Total Contributions |
| None | 21.1% |
| Red Hat | 12.0% |
| IBM | 6.3% |
| Novell | 6.1% |
| Intel | 6.0% |
| Oracle | 3.1% |
| Consultant | 2.3% |
| Parallels | 1.7% |
| Fujitsu | 1.5% |
| Academia | 1.5% |