How and why to work with the Linux kernel community
Distributions


Distributions (both commercial and community based)
Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora, RedHat, Mandriva, ...

Role
Aggregate thousands of individual FOSS programs
Find stable and compatible versions of those programs
Do 'software system integration'
Offer bianary software packages and installation media
Offer (security) updates to their users
Offer free/best effort or commercial support for professional users