Well 'using' Linux in production is quite different to actually contributing to the development to it.
From the FAANMG group of companies: Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft and Google all have employees signing off patches under their company emails and no-one should be surprised to see no contributions from Apple to the Linux kernel anyway.
> no-one should be surprised to see no contributions from Apple to the Linux kernel anyway
Why not? I know Apple is generally looked as a closed down company, but I'm still surprised that a company with their caliber, capital, resources and engineers can't find the time to help out the community that is helping them.
As someone who works for a company where the IP lawyers own your soul and constantly remind you of the fact, I would not be surprised that Apple contributions to the Linux kernel are few and far between.
Don't worry, the Apple thinktroopers will catch up with those people and then they'll probably be free to contribute to any free software they want in their now-limitless leisure time.
Because in Apple's case they are merely using Linux as off the shelf server software to serve a website or maybe files in their HQ. They have no need to modify Linux therefor they have no need to create patches. Apple doesn't even contribute to FreeBSD despite lifting many components for OSX AFIK.
The others have deep investment in Linux and therefore contribute patches.
AFAIK Apple favors FreeBSD and NetBSD (the latter used for the Airport routers). I wouldn’t be surprised if they have contributed code to those projects.
> to see no contributions from Apple to the Linux kernel anyway
There is one person submitting patches to the linux kernel under an @apple.com address and a few more listed as having reported them. That's as of the last time I pulled the kernel repo back in November.
