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Any programmer can look at the code and change it to fix bugs or add features.
Programmers contribute such patches to the user community by sending them to a central authority, recognized as the project leader. For instance, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, screens patches for the core portions of that operating system. There are thousands of open-source projects, of varying popularity and complexity. Aside from Linux, some of the most prominent include the PERL language, Apache server software, the Emacs text editor and the Sendmail e-mail routing program. Companies like Red Hat make money not from the code itself, which customers could get free, but from the products or services bundled with it.