Red Hat, Intel, AMD, SUSE, Samsung, Canonical etc. Obviously, a lot of paid work is done on low-level plumbing, because Linux is hugely profitable as a server,

Red Hat, Intel, AMD, SUSE, Samsung, Canonical etc. Obviously, a lot of paid work is done on low-level plumbing, because Linux is hugely profitable as a server, infrastructure, or embedded operating system for a lot of companies. Graphics infrastructure (KMS, Wayland, X11, etc.) is useful for companies who embed Linux in various appliances (set-op boxes, etc.). Red Hat probably invests in GNOME because for Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation and dogfooding.