You don't understand. This is a list of people who have ownership over some part of Linux: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/MAINTAINERS https://gi

You don't understand. This is a list of people who have ownership over some part of Linux: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/MAINTAINERS https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/MAINTAINERS Linus might have the "final say" but all of the work and knowledge is encapsulated in these people and they are generally given the autonomy to organize and maintain their subsystems as they see fit. As for Linus's tree, it's probably the most Linux Linux that's out there, but it's hardly the only one. Hardly anyone actually runs Linux from Linus's tree. Most distros maintain their own trees with their own patchsets.