Linux developers rely on Git, but they do not all share one view of GitHub. For Linux kernel contributions, the authoritative workflow runs through maintainer trees and mailing lists, not GitHub pull requests. Elsewhere in the Linux ecosystem, GitHub can be a useful place to host, discover, and collaborate on projects.
Git and GitHub are different things
Git is distributed version-control software: developers use it to track changes, create branches, and exchange work. GitHub is a hosted collaboration service built around Git. It adds web-based repositories, code discovery, issues, pull requests, and other social and project features.
A developer can use Git every day without using GitHub. Git repositories can be hosted and shared through other services or through project-specific infrastructure. That distinction is especially important for the Linux kernel: Git is central to its development, while GitHub is not its upstream contribution authority.
How the Linux kernel uses Git
The kernel’s official patch guide assumes contributors use Git to prepare patches, recommending that people unfamiliar with it learn the tool. It points contributors to Linus Torvalds’s mainline repository, while warning that subsystem maintainers may want changes based on their own trees. The mainline clone command given in the guide is:
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git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
Git supports a flow in which developers prepare changes locally, maintainers review and integrate them through their trees, and selected changes move toward the mainline repository. The kernel HOWTO identifies Git as the preferred way to submit large changes, while also saying plain patches are acceptable.
Where kernel developers submit patches
Kernel review is centered on email and public mailing lists. The official patch guide asks contributors to identify the right maintainers and lists, and recommends sending patches inline so reviewers can quote and comment on specific parts. The HOWTO says patches sent after the first release candidate also need to go to a public mailing list for review.
A practical path for a prospective contributor
- Learn Git and the kernel’s contribution process. The kernel process index points newcomers to guides covering Git, email clients, patching, coding style, and project policies.
- Find the relevant tree and reviewers. Start with the mainline repository if appropriate, but check whether the subsystem maintainer expects a patch based on another tree. Identify the maintainers and mailing lists for the area you are changing.
- Make each patch a clear unit of work. The patch guide asks for each logical change to be understandable and independently verifiable.
- Send the patch for email review. Use the project’s mailing-list workflow and format the message so reviewers can respond inline to the code.
These are kernel-specific conventions, not a rule for every Linux-related project. A distribution, desktop environment, developer tool, or application may accept contributions through GitHub pull requests and issues instead.
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Why the kernel does not use GitHub pull requests as its upstream intake
The kernel’s review process is built around email, mailing lists, and maintainer trees. Pull requests are a web workflow offered by GitHub; they are not a substitute for the kernel’s established path for submitting and discussing upstream patches. A GitHub repository may be useful as a mirror or for related work, but a pull request there is not, by itself, an authoritative kernel submission.
This distinction reflects the workflow the kernel community documents: patches need to reach the right maintainers and lists, and reviewers need to discuss precise sections of the patch. The relevant question for a contribution is therefore not simply whether code is on GitHub, but whether it has been submitted through the process used by the maintainers responsible for that code.
What Linus Torvalds says about Git and GitHub
In a GitHub interview published April 7, 2025, Torvalds described Git’s distributed design as a reason hosting services such as GitHub were easy to build. Because developers can work locally and make their work available elsewhere without relying on one privileged repository, he said, “that was what made services like GitHub trivial.”
He sees hosting services as making collaboration easier, but not as having fundamentally remade software development. His concise assessment was: “It makes collaboration easier to some degree.” Those are Torvalds’s personal views, not a formal policy statement or a vote on behalf of all Linux developers. He also noted that Git’s widespread use leads people to do things he considers wrong, underscoring that adoption of the tool does not imply agreement on every use of it.
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Do Linux and BSD developers trust GitHub?
There is no single community-wide answer. A study by Kula, Hata, and Matsumoto, dated February 2, 2021, surveyed 246 developers from Linux- and BSD-oriented free/libre and open-source software communities after Microsoft completed its acquisition of GitHub. The authors cautioned that this targeted sample does not represent all open-source developers, let alone every Linux developer.
| Survey response | Result | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Stayed on GitHub | 138 respondents (56%) | A majority of this sample continued using the service. |
| Moved away from GitHub | 75 respondents (31%) | A substantial minority left. |
| Did not use GitHub | 33 respondents (13%) | Some respondents were not users in the first place. |
| Called themselves GitHub fans | 63% | Practical appreciation coexisted with reservations. |
| Expected Microsoft’s acquisition to be detrimental to their GitHub projects | 55% | Many respondents were concerned about the change in ownership. |
| Responded negatively to the possibility that the acquisition would expand free/open-source contributors | 74% | The survey recorded skepticism about that proposed outcome. |
| Did not think the acquisition would improve reliability or services | 45% | Confidence in service improvements was not universal. |
The figures point to mixed views: most respondents stayed on GitHub, while many expressed concerns about ownership or the service’s future. They do not support the claim that Linux developers as a whole hate or reject GitHub.
Should you learn GitHub to contribute to the Linux kernel?
Learn Git first. The kernel’s official patch guide explicitly treats Git as the expected tool for preparing changes, while the process guides also emphasize email, patching, and community policies. GitHub can still be useful for finding projects, browsing code, or contributing to Linux-related software whose maintainers use its pull-request workflow; it is simply not a replacement for learning how kernel patches are prepared and reviewed.
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