Ghostboard pixel

Guess Who Contributed the Most to Linux Kernel 5.10 Development? It's Huawei (and Intel)

Guess Who Contributed the Most to Linux Kernel 5.10 Development? It's Huawei (and Intel)

For a couple of years now, Intel has been leading the code contribution ranking for the development of Linux Kernel by the number changeset or number of lines changed.

According to the latest statistics reported on LWN.net, Intel tops the chart as one of the most active employers for Linux Kernel 5.10 LTS development cycle.

Intel’s contribution is nothing out of ordinary. It’s Huawei that adds the surprise here.

With Intel, Huawei is also known to have made consistent major contributions to the kernel code in recently. It has reached a new milestone with Linux Kernel 5.10.

Huawei contributed the most by the number of changesets. Intel contributed the most by the number of lines changed.

Statistics from the 5.10 Kernel Development Cycle

As per the stats published by Jonathan Corbet on LWN.net, a lot happened along the Linux Kernel 5.10 development cycle.

Of course, if you are interested to know all the details, you might want to read the original report, but the key highlight would be the contribution made by major companies (or the employers of developers working on the kernel development).

Intel and Huawei Technologies are among the top 2 contributors here. To be specific, the contribution by the developers working for Intel is 12.6% (with 96976 lines changed) and 8.0% by the number of changesets.

For developers working for Huawei, they made a significant 8.9% of contribution (with 1434 changesets) and 5.3% (with 41049 lines changed).

Of course, this is a good reputation for the employers and also says a lot about the companies putting strong effort for Linux Kernel development, which is always a good thing.

You can also notice many significant companies contributing like SUSE, AMD, NVIDIA, Google, IBM, Samsung, and Red Hat among others.

Even though Linux Kernel 5.10 was an LTS release, the year 2020 was tough on many people including some maintainers of the Kernel with health issues. However, overall, the kernel development cycle made a good progress last year along with a bunch of improvements coming to the upcoming kernel versions this year.

Why is Huawei contributing more to Linux kernel?

Huawei has several products and services that rely heavily on Linux. Its smartphones that used Android and its new mobile OS Harmony is most likely a revamped Android and thus based on Linux.

Apart from that Huawei also offers Huawei Cloud services to compete with the likes of AWS and Google Cloud. Obviously, it needs to customize the Linux kernel to power its cloud infrastructure.

Huawei had also unveiled its own Linux distribution openEuler last year.

Due to its close ties with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), suspicious activities and espionage accusations, Huawei has turned pariah in the tech world today.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma’s disappearance is an example that Chinese companies have to toe the lines set by CCP event at the cost of losing business overseas.

Your opinion on this topic is welcome. Please use the comment section to share your thoughts.

🎗️
Here's why you should opt for It's FOSS Plus Membership:

- Even the biggest players in the Linux world don't care about desktop Linux users. We do.
- We don't put informational content behind paywall. Your support keeps it open for everyone. Think of it like 'pay it forward'.
- Don't like ads? With the Plus membership, you get an ad-free reading experience.
- When millions of AI-generated content is being published daily, you read and learn from real human Linux users.
- It costs just $2 a month, less than the cost of your favorite burger.

Become a Plus Member today and join over 300 people in supporting our work.
21 comments
Avatar Placeholder
Harsh Yadav
With the releases of Kernel 5.6 and before I always thought that Linux is more of becoming something in the shade of gray in comparison to those OSs. that specifically Dominates for there purpose as FreeBSD, For Network Stack, OpenBSD for Security, MacOS for Productivity Desktops, and Windows for Creating Bugs in the System for Gamers So that they can Spy them But after the release 5.8 Linux and afterwards I am just surprised with the fact how well it is turning up to use Linux on Desktops increasing number of Drivers community support and Companies like Intel, NVDIA, Google, etc. Dominating more into the project making it possible. Linux on Desktops doesn't seems to be challenge anymore it's already happened and happening.
Avatar Placeholder
plrndl
Linus is thinking "you're a ** ** ** who doesn't know his Amazon from his eBay".
Avatar Placeholder
Plus Member
David
Indeed. Advanced technologies falling on wrong hand make me very unhappy.
Hide Replies 1
Avatar Placeholder
Captain
Another baseless anti-China propaganda: All things
Chinese / Communist = evil, All things West / USA = good
Avatar Placeholder
Plus Member
David
Hmmm......, seems China intelligent agency likes Linux very much.
Hide Replies 1
Avatar Placeholder
Captain
So does NSA
Avatar Placeholder
madgravity
this is kinda not very welcome news for security...
"Huawei has several products and services that rely heavily on Linux" like spying on their own people and others :'(
Hide Replies 2
Avatar Placeholder
sinekonata
Holy shit the amount of bots/shills in here. The kernel is still open source ffs...
Avatar Placeholder
Captain
Another baseless anti-China propaganda: All things
Chinese / Communist = evil, All things Western / USA = good
Avatar Placeholder
Nizar
That's an insult to every one who can rest code and couldn't find the bugs you're referring to.
Hide Replies 1
Avatar Placeholder
Captain
Indeed, there is a weird mindset amongst these people that only non Chinese programmers can do no harm to Linux
Avatar Placeholder
J Garbo
Huawei connected to CCP? You mean like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft connected to CIA, NSA? No sweat...
Avatar Placeholder
Incredulous
Whoa - if Huawei is contributing to Linux kernel, the kernel is compromised! What the hell are you thinking, Linus Torvalds??
Hide Replies 5
Avatar Placeholder
Umesh T
Looks like nobody got the tongue-in-cheek comment.
I am sorry. They killed the funny!
Avatar Placeholder
sinekonata
In the title, it says Intel is contributing. Google also contributes to the kernel...
If you don't want to be treated as a racist, maybe you should think before you speak.
Avatar Placeholder
Captain
Another baseless anti-China propaganda: All things Chinese / Communist = evil, All things Western / USA = good
Hide Replies 2
Avatar Placeholder
mickrussom
not really, all things chicom = bad, all things USA at this point are highly suspect as freedom and liberty are taking a back seat.
Hide Replies 1
Avatar Placeholder
Captain
That's strange. That's a lot of people buying Chinese consumer electronics if it is bad. As for myself, I am very happy with my Huawei phone and Xiaomi electronics. I will never buy an American product like Apple
Avatar Placeholder
Elmer Esque
1 line changed ==> >= 1 bug added
Hide Replies 2
Avatar Placeholder
Captain
Another baseless anti-China propaganda
Hide Replies 1
Avatar Placeholder
sinekonata
Thank you to your devotion to anti-racism, it makes me feel less like a lone human in a sea of fascists.
FastComments.com

Great! You’ve successfully signed up.

Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.

You've successfully subscribed to It's FOSS News.

Success! Check your email for magic link to sign-in.

Success! Your billing info has been updated.

Your billing was not updated.