75% of Linux is now written by paid developers there's also hobbyists, volunteers, and people like RMS who believe they have a profound obligation to promote F

75% of Linux is now written by paid developers there's also hobbyists, volunteers, and people like RMS who believe they have a profound obligation to promote FOSS. I wouldn't consider that these two as completely distinct sets of people. Most of the paid Linux developers I know of (not necessarily a representative sample, but a fair few) started doing it as a hobby, and still do similar things as a hobby in their spare time. They're being paid to do it now because they were very good at it, and a particular company wants some say in exactly how it's done. A former co-worker of mine put it pretty well: "Quiet! As long as they don't know that we'd do this stuff anyhow for free, they'll keep paying us to do it!"