The Linux Foundation has released its annual report for 2025, showcasing a significant increase in funding from previous years. In 2025, the organization received $311.3 million in revenue, compared to $292.2 million the year before and $263.6 million two years ago. However, the foundation spent $284.8 million, a decrease from $299.7 million the previous year and $269 million two years ago.
Within these expenditures, $8.4 million was allocated for developing the Linux kernel, marking a $1.6 million increase from the previous year and a $600 thousand increase from two years ago. This represents a total share of 2.9% of all costs associated with kernel development, a slight increase from the 2.3% share in 2024, 2.9% in 2023, 3.2% in 2022, and 3.4% in 2021.
While kernel development expenses saw a rise, other expenses experienced varying changes:
- Expenses on non-core projects decreased from $193.7 million to $181.9 million, comprising 63.8% of all expenses.
- Infrastructure maintenance costs decreased from $22.69 million to $17.7 million (6.2%).
- Costs on training and certification programs decreased from $23.1 million to $21.6 million (7.6%).
- Corporate operations expenses decreased from $18.9 million to $15.8 million (5.5%).
- Events expenses increased from $15.2 million to $16.8 million (5.9%).
- Community support expenses increased from $13.7 million to $15.7 million (5.5%).
- International operations expenses increased from $5.6 million to $6.7 million (2.3%).
Regarding revenue sources, donations and contributions from members of the organization accounted for 42.8% of all funds received, totaling $133.3 million. Targeted support for projects made up 26.8% at $83.57 million, support for events and registration fees for conferences comprised 18.8% at $58.6 million, and payment for training courses and certificates contributed 9.5% at $29.6 million.
The report also highlights the growth in the number of projects supervised by the Linux Foundation, nearing 1500 compared to about 1300 the previous year and around 1100 two