[rwmj]

Red Hat is the largest single contributor to Open Stack[1]

IMHO Ubuntu gets a free ride because every distro except Ubuntu has to set up an external CI server in order to get their drivers and changes in.

[1] http://activity.openstack.org/dash/releases/

[allenap]

The single largest contributor by the metrics you posted. There are other types of contribution, integration and distribution for example, things that Ubuntu has traditionally focused on instead of raw upstream work.

By head count, Red Hat is 10 times the size of Canonical. This means that Canonical would not be expected to show in the graphs you linked to, given the same level of activity averaged per employee. Yet Ubuntu is the distro of choice for OpenStack. That speaks to the strength of the community around OpenStack on Ubuntu, the skill and commitment of the people working on it, and the quality of the experience.

As to the grumble about spinning up an external CI server: you'll be glad to know that Ubuntu is really easy to spin up on bare metal or in VMs, and you don't have to buy licenses ;)

Disclaimer: I work for Canonical, so I am totally biased. I don't work on OpenStack, but I know many of those who do.

[tsuraan]

What do you mean when you say Ubuntu is the distro of choice? Looking at openstack's install docs, they list install guides for Debian, SUSEs, Red Hats, and then Ubuntu (in that order). Is there some place on the openstack site that indicates a preference toward Ubuntu?

[allenap]

I may have overstated then.

From rwmj's comment that "every distro except Ubuntu has to set up an external CI server in order to get their drivers and changes in" I gathered that Ubuntu was the distro of choice for CI, so that's what I should have written: for CI. I didn't mean to say that Ubuntu is the OpenStack project's preferred choice for deployment.