What’s in a top-tier distro?
Just as anyone can contribute to the Linux Kernel, so anyone can contribute to Fedora or Ubuntu. You don’t need to be a seasoned coder – there are always translation and documentation tasks to do. If you’re a dab hand with a (virtual) paintbrush maybe you could contribute some icons, themes and logos too. Distro development isn’t some communist free for all, though. There are committees and managerial structures, though these are in general much less rigid than you’d find in a similar-sized company. In 2015 some 35 per cent of the 2,000-odd Fedora contributors were Red Hat employees, though the remaining 65 per cent may well have been working for someone else.
We won’t get into the technical minutia of how a distro is actually made. Look at the appropriate -next branch of any distro’s, which shows when new software planned for inclusion is released.
