The world has changed and adapted to the needs of the public. You cannot force things on the consumers if they are not willing to buy and purchase them. People know what they want – those who want to play video games will do so on their computers, those who want to play casino games can use Comeon bonuskod to have more fun, and those who want to shop will browse online stores endlessly if they want to. When you are making software, you cannot expect that everyone will be satisfied. However, some people saw that as an opportunity to actually give the people the chance to contribute to their project and to help everyone along the way, as well as download the software for free.

The Open Source Movement started in the 90s and is very popular today. So popular, in fact, that you have so many open source programs and libraries out there which you can download and use, reuse and contribute to. Behind some of these innovations are actual companies. Some of them are open source companies, completely devoted to making open source software, while others are corporate giants who also contribute lots of code to the world of open source. Here are the best and most successful of them.

Canonical – The Minds Behind Ubuntu

While it is important to mention Debian, given that Ubuntu is based on Debian, Ubuntu and its many other siblings, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Kubuntu and the rest, are all Debian-based. That means they run off the same code which runs Debian, but tweaked. Canonical is the company which maintains Ubuntu and provides long term support for its customers, thus the LTS versions of Ubuntu you can download. Their updates are often slower than of the other linux distros, especially rolling release ones, but you get stability with them.

Red Hat

Red Hat is the other guy in the world of linux. They develop and maintain Fedora, one of the more stable distro choices. While you’d be typing sudo apt in Ubuntu, you’d be using sudo yum in Fedora. Fedora is a different distribution and is not based on Debian, however. Red Hat is also responsible for sponsoring the Apache Foundation and the OpenStack Foundation. They also have their hands tied in multiple open source projects such as OpenShift and CloudForms.

Intel

While their marketing might not be the most honest regarding their CPUs and they might be currently behind on their 10nm process, instead going with the 14nm and infinite pluses behind it, they are still one of the biggest (quite literally) supporters of open source.

Intel contributed around 14,000 lines of code to the linux kernel in 2016. At the time, that was 13% of the contributions. They also have a sponsorship in the OpenStack, Eclipse and Linux Foundations. They are often contributing to various open source projects, as evident by the open sourcing of their Thunderbolt protocol. 

GitHub

Is that even a question? It is the largest open source repository and they are dedicated to everything open source. They host most of the data which you as someone who likes open source could ever want. Almost every single open source project can be found on Git. They also helped create projects of their own like the Atom text editor. 

AMD

AMD open sourced their entire drivers for linux systems. They also have a suite called GPUOpen which can be used on linux systems, as well. It is a middleware solution and helps users port games between consoles and the PC and is also intended for high performance computing. Their drivers, AMDGPU, are also open source and the code can be contributed to. The driver is also integrated in the kernel so newest kernel versions always have the newest drivers (especially useful for new graphics card releases).

These are the top open source companies, as well as companies which often contribute to open source and are devoted to making more open source projects, thus pushing the community forward.