@JessTheUnstill
Yes and no.
I think the Linux kernel has a different issue overall. Except for drivers; the majority of the issues inside the Linux kernel are huge infastructure projects. (the exception might be improving the BPF verifier where a new person could in theory help out especially when you say this is a sequence of BPF ISA that should be accepted; how do we improve value tracking to accept it). Ok there could be some tunining of some scheduler heuristics but that is always going to be rejected; the scheduler has always been a pain (Witness folks quiting Linux kernel over it 10 years ago or maybe even longer).
This is unlike say LLVM or GCC where you could have very small projects (a day or a week) which can be done for optimizations.
The other side of things testing GCC or LLVM is much easier and is actually existing.
So I agree with your statement about the Linux kernel but that is only because unlike a compiler it is only driver development (ok fine there is more to the linux kernel than driver development but that is where the majority of people working on the Linux kernel get paid for).
