Dear Ashish,
Linux kernel as well as many other Open source software like
Apache, OpenSSH, KDE etc. are maintained centrally by their respective
maintainers. People do contribute code to all of them and it gets
incorporated. Distro creators do not entirely change the code. They may just
introduce minor patches, backport features from a future release etc. Like
OpenSuse backported some features of KDE 4.1 though they released OpenSUSE
11 with KDE 4.0.3 (As 4.1 wasn't out then). Regarding the kernel, distros
may use different configurations at compile time; to generate a kernel say
that's more optimized for Servers. As for your comments about GUI apps
making a system more or less secure; it's unfounded. Well coded GUI apps are
as secure as their non-GUI counterparts. Infact in many Linux "GUI" apps,
all they do is execute ur normal program at the back. The GUI is just sugar
coating.
Regards,
Karthik Ramgopal
