Twitter Puts Some Money Behind Linux, Boosting Its Developer Street Cred

The Linux Foundation today announced that it has a new big-name member: Twitter.  Twitter is a big user of Linux. So the real-time information network has stepped up to become an official, paying sponsor of the organization that oversees Linux.

It's a Silver member, paying $15,000 a year to support the Foundation, which covers things like the salary of Linux inventor Linus Torvalds.  You don't need to be a sponsor to use Linux or to submit software additions to it—that's the beauty of open-source software, which many startups have come to depend on.  But becoming an official Linux sponsor gives a company a couple of benefits. Sponsors get a bigger say in the kinds of technologies that will be included in Linux and which other projects the Linux Foundation works on.

For Twitter, whose servers are supporting 140 million active users and 400 million tweets a day, there's a long list of things they'll want built into Linux...Being a paying sponsor also has another, less tangible benefit. It gives a company some street cred with developers...