If you’ve always bought into the idea that Linux was written and maintained by geeks and hackers in after-hours ventures — all for other geeks and hackers, think again.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on Computerworld analyzed a report from the Linux Foundation on who writes Linux and found that Linux is written by big companies for big companies.
Here’s the top ten contributors to Linux:
- Red Hat: 12.3%
- IBM: 7.6%
- Novell: 7.6%
- Intel: 5.3%
- Independent consultant: 2.5%
- Oracle: 2.4%
- Linux Foundation: 1.6%
- SGI 1.6%
- Parallels 1.3%
- Renesas Technology: 1.3%
Big businesses write Linux because big businesses use Linux.
