[Steltek]

It saddens me as I see this massive infusion of developer time and energy being donated to one of the biggest tech companies around. If that effort had instead gone into making Linux better, which Homebrew obviously builds on, where would Linux workstations be now? Would I get a nice Linux laptop from my company instead of being forced to use a MacBook?

[taylodl]

Contributing to Linux also helps the biggest tech companies around - namely IBM and Oracle amongst a host of others. When you contribute to free and open source software you should know and understand you're providing your labor for free to tech behemoths. For most it's a labor of love and aligns with their passion and so everything is cool but you run across a few who's feelings get hurt and feel like they're getting ripped-off.

[LiberatedLlama]

Contributing specifically to the desktop experience of Linux is another matter (unless maybe you're a GNOME developer.)

[acomjean]

Well if you donate code to linux anyone can use your donation for free. It helps everyone not one specific hardware vendor. (unless your donating drivers...)