Comment on New systemd update will bring Windows’ infamous Blue Screen of Death to Linux
FarraigePlaisteach@kbin.social 9 months agoThe biggest contributors to linux (the kernel), are corporations: https://news.itsfoss.com/huawei-kernel-contribution/
Is it the case that individual devs add up to a greater total than those? I really hope so. Regardless, surely someone is asking for this stuff or it wouldn't have found investment.
danielfgom@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That’s what I mean. There are thousands of people worldwide submitting bug fixes and improvements. Plus when I say “Linux” I don’t only mean the kernel. I’m taking about GNU + Linux - desktops, libraries, applications etc. These are all part of what makes a distro possible. And all of that is largely done by normal Devs for free.
Even people like the Mint Team who make the Cinnamon desktop are doing it for free. They get donations but that’s not a salary and when they started the project they had no donations.
Same for Debian. I don’t think anyone at Debian gets paid.
And let’s not forget the entire GNU piece was done for free by Richard Stallman and friends. Without that there wouldn’t be distros as we know them today.
The kernel is only a bunch of drivers that talks to hardware (mouse, keyboard, usb devices etc). That’s it! On its own it’s useless. The GNU part is the OS and the kernel just tells the OS what hardware is connected and how to talk to it.