Voice of the Masses: Which company does the most for Linux?
While part-time hobbyists do plenty of great work on GNU/Linux, most of the code thesedays comes from paid developers. So for our upcoming podcast, we want your opinions: which company does the most for Linux? You might argue that Red Hat or SUSE contribute the most with their patches and efforts to get Linux into enterprises, or you may say that Intel or Canonical are doing the best work.
Perhaps you think Raspberry Pi Ltd (the trading arm) is helping to spread Linux more than any other company, or maybe the award should go to Microsoft: with Vista and Windows 8, the company certainly made people explore alternatives! In any case, let us know in the comments below and we’ll read out the best in our upcoming recording.
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About The Author
Mike Saunders
Mike stores his data by printing out hex dumps and laminating the sheets. He's the author of The Haynes Linux Manual and the creator of MikeOS, an operating system hand-built from assembly language.
I want to give a shoutout to Valve in this regard. People started wondering if SteamOS and Steam machines were just a powerplay or an “option” to threaten MS with but I think 2015 has proved that theory wrong. If helping push linux as a viable option into new areas counts, then Valve has certainly “done” a lot for linux.
As probably everyone, I think the GNU/Linux I use is the most important on earth – that’s SUSE. No, seriously, I think that SUSE/the openSUSE project does a lot for Linux by developing a bunch of tools around the Linux-development: OpenBuildService, OpenQA and so forth are not only helpful to improve the state of the tux, but also a reason for organisations (e.g. EADS/Airbus) to switch to Linux.
For the same reason, I think we should thank GitHub & Gitorious for what they did not only to GNU/Linux, but FLOSS in general.
Good question with so many possible answers. I’m tempted to say Canonical because they really have raised the recognition of Linux in so many different places. Even in China (with Deepin). And Linux has needed that kind of awareness, otherwise its presence is largely overlooked.
But I’m giving my nomination to Debian, as the rock on which Ubuntu and so many other downstream distros are built. And not least for getting Linux off the planet and into space!
uhm… Debian’s not a company, dude.
The question is not which distro is better, it’s about recognizing the contribution to linux of commercial companies.
When I saw the topic scroll past in my Tickr feed reader I immediately thought: The Raspberry Pi Foundation. The next thought: “That is probably not a company”. Reading the introduction I learnt that their trading arm is a company, so I would like to nominate:
1. Red Hat: For making Linux respectable in businesses historically
2. Raspberry Pi Ltd: For making physical computing accessible to the masses.
3. Canonical: For innovating like crazy in the area of the Internet of Things.
All these companies have helped Linux get a foothold in new areas.
I suppose Google should get an honorary mention for putting Linux in so many pockets.
Obviously Microsoft, because if it wasn’t for their software none of us would really seek a better alternative.
Redhat because their developers work on different parts of GNU/Linux. In the current Linux kernel repository there are 30736 commits by persons with redhat.com email address.
git shortlog -s –author=@redhat\\.com | awk ‘{ i = i + $1 } END { print i }’
That’d be Red Hat – by a large margin. No everybody likes the way of doing things on Red Hattish Distributions like RHEL, CentOS and Fedora. But there’s more going on: In the past Red Hat has acquired proprietary software projects and has rereleased them under open source licenses.
Also back in 2003 when the SCO Group was still a thing and initiated a number of lawsuits claiming that Linux is infringing SCO’s copyrights, Red Hat filed their own suit against SCO, requesting a permanent injunction. The SCO mess that eventually led to the demise of the SCO group was one of the first legal battles Linux (as a kernel) faced. In cases like these it’s just good that there are slightly-less-evil companies with law departments and the ability to defend the GPL against spurious claims.
I’m going to say Red Hat, but it is close with Canonical. Both companies have done a lot for Linux. Canonical has done the most for the desktop, but Red Hat conquered the data center, so I give it the edge.
Does it matter which of them does the most, as they do it at all? If GNU/Linux is the foundation of your business, then investing resources in it is the same as investing in your business.
That should be “so long as they do it at all”.
Ho hum, it’s been a long day.
I also vote for Microsoft, because thanks to how awful their products are most of us would probably never seek out Linux.
I am going to say Linux Voice Ltd. In the past year you have done so much in promoting, supporting and advocating Linux and Free Software, you deserve a mention. Think of all the software that has fallen fallow as developers move away. For a while it remains fresh and relevant, but eventually, it fades into obscurity and others take their place. I don’t feel Linux is strong enough to stand up for itself against the corporate giants who constantly throw money at their brands. Unhelpfully, Linux is a fragmented brand based on bits of software from all over the place, distributed accordingly via a plethora of OS projects. If there is one place where information can be shared, channelled and promoted, it’s through the Linux Media. Linux Voice Ltd has, in the past year, done a fine job with this. You keep Linux alive in our minds and counteract the obscurity disease our beloved kernel and associated software is often riddled with by those blissfully un-enlightened computer users around the globe!
Excellent point.
Maybe “the most” is a bit too much, but Apple’s success over the last decade has been enormously helpful to Linux users. While we were waiting for the Year of the Linux Desktop (TM), Apple managed to steal a big chunk of MS’s market share and made it a bit more normal to be using anything but Windows, Word and Internet Explorer. I still remember the dark days when websites wouldn’t work on anything but IE5, and when support call centres were shocked about the answer “none” to the question “which Windows version are you using?”.
Blue systems….
….. but I suspect we will never be able to say how or why….
Without doubt, for me, it is Microsoft. I had been playing with openSUSE 10.2, dual booting with XP when, after an bit of surgery on my box, Windows XP would not Authenticate. Now, should I part with £64 to renew my license with Microsoft or place both of my feet into the GNU/Linux pond? No contest really, I’ve switch to Linux! No more viruses, no more days waisted reinstalling Vista on to my Notebook, (3 days last time I tried, one to install, one to load applications and another to update!!). Thank you Microsoft, without you I would never had looked for an alternative, let alone jump ship.
Even today, I continue to convert friends and neighbours to Linux Mint when their computers give up the Microsoft Ghost.
Don’t forget the little guys. FOSS is built on the work and dedication of lots of people in small companies that encourage their staff to work on this stuff.
See https://lwn.net/Articles/507986/
None is the company with the highest number of contributions!
It depends what you mean by the most?
– Development
– Marketing/Awareness
The awareness has been boosted massively by Raspberry Pi, Canonical and Valve. I can’t personally voice any opinions on who are doing the most on the development front so I’ll leave that to other commenters.
In one of the major universities in Chile, I have seen quite a number of students using various flavours linux on people’s laptops but mostly Ubuntu and Mint – this is really nice to see.
I think are a lot of innnovation in the linux distributions field.
1. Red Hat for enterprise innovation and kernel contribution
2. Deepin for its desktop
3. Steam OS for Linux gaming
3. Ubuntu for the device convergence
4. Arch Linux for learning Linux from its wiki
5. openSUSE for KDE support