Red Hat, Novell, IBM Among Top Contributors to Linux Development

by Darryl K. Taft

The category “none” is responsible for 35,663 changes to the Linux kernel, or 18.9 percent of the total work. “None” represents developers who are known to be doing this work on their own, with no financial contribution happening from any company.

Red Hat is responsible for 23,356 changes to the Linux kernel, or 12.4 percent of the total work.

Novell is responsible for 13,120 changes to the Linux kernel, or 7 percent of the total work.

IBM is responsible for 13,026 changes to the Linux kernel, or 6.9 percent of the total work.

The category “Unknown” is responsible for 12,060 changes to the Linux kernel, or 6.4 percent of the total work. According to the Linux Foundation, “There are a number of developers for whom we were unable to determine a corporate affiliation. … With few exceptions, all of the people in this category have contributed 10 or fewer changes to the kernel over the past three years, yet the large number of these developers causes their total contribution to be quite high.”

Intel is responsible for 11,028 changes to the Linux kernel, or 5.8 percent of the total work.

Consultants were responsible for 4,817 changes to the Linux kernel, or 2.6 percent of the total work.

Oracle was responsible for 4,367 changes to the Linux kernel, or 2.3 percent of the total work.

Renesas Technology was responsible for 2,621 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1.4 percent of the total work.

The Linux Foundation was responsible for 2,488 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1.3 percent of the total work.

Academics were responsible for 2,464 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1.3 percent of the total work.

SGI was responsible for 2,450 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1.3 percent of the total work.

Fujitsu was responsible for 2,293 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1.2 percent of the total work.

Parallels was responsible for 2,226 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1.2 percent of the total work.

Analog Devices was responsible for 1,955 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1 percent of the total work.

Nokia was responsible for 1,896 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1 percent of the total work.

Hewlett-Packard was responsible for 1,854 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1 percent of the total work.

MontaVista was responsible for 1,821 changes to the Linux kernel, or 1 percent of the total work.

Google was responsible for 1,565 changes to the Linux kernel, or .8 percent of the total work.

Advanced Micro Devices was responsible for 1,518 changes to the Linux kernel, or .8 percent of the total work.

Freescale was responsible for 1,501 changes to the Linux kernel, or .8 percent of the total work.