Via thenewstack, since 2005, “some 14,000 individual developers from over 1,300 different companies have contributed to the kernel.”

The Linux kernel is an enormous open source project that has been in development for more than 25 years. While many people tend to think of open source projects as being developed by passionate volunteers, the Linux kernel is mostly developed by people who are paid by their employers to contribute.

About once a year, The Linux Foundation releases the Linux Kernel Development report with data about release frequency, rate of change, who contributes, and which companies sponsor this work among other things.

Per 2016 report, the top contributing companies to the Linux kernel were:

• Intel (12.9 percent)
• Red Hat (8 percent)
• Linaro (4 percent)
• Samsung (3.9 percent)
• SUSE (3.2 percent)
• IBM (2.7 percent)

One of the lessons learned in the 2016 report does a nice job of summing up how the Linux kernel considers contributions from companies:

“Corporate participation in the process is crucial, but no single company dominates kernel development. So, while any company can improve the kernel for its specific needs, no company can drive development in directions that hurt the others or restrict what the kernel can do.”

Read the entire article here.