How valid is the assumption that contributors always use a corporate email address?
I know I've made a lot of contributions to open source projects, but since I change employers I just do it under my own domain. Few people get jobs contributing to the Linux kernel without previous experience. It's not terribly convenient to re-obtain contribution credentials every time you change jobs. It also makes you a target of enmity from people like our gentle readers here on Phoronix if they see you have an email domain that tickles their amygdala in an undesirable way. My guess is most active and successful kernel contributors do not, in fact, use one of the corporate emails to make their contributions, so analyses like these are really just worthless clickbait fluff.
Still, if this argument applies to all employers, then it would be far more meaningful to see a per-capita breakdown of the numbers.
I know I've made a lot of contributions to open source projects, but since I change employers I just do it under my own domain. Few people get jobs contributing to the Linux kernel without previous experience. It's not terribly convenient to re-obtain contribution credentials every time you change jobs. It also makes you a target of enmity from people like our gentle readers here on Phoronix if they see you have an email domain that tickles their amygdala in an undesirable way. My guess is most active and successful kernel contributors do not, in fact, use one of the corporate emails to make their contributions, so analyses like these are really just worthless clickbait fluff.
Still, if this argument applies to all employers, then it would be far more meaningful to see a per-capita breakdown of the numbers.
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