At LinuxCon Japan 2010 in Tokyo, Dr. Dan Frye, vice president of open system development at IBM, gave a keynote in which he reflected on IBM's 10 years of participation in the Linux community and offered advice for other organizations and developers that want to improve their participation in the community.
LinuxCon Japan is a premiere Linux conference in Asia that brings together a blend of core developers, administrators, users, community managers and industry experts. It is designed not only to encourage collaboration but to support future interaction between Japan and other Asia Pacific countries and the rest of the global Linux community. The recent conference included presentations, tutorials, birds of a feather sessions, keynotes, sponsored mini-summits, and was the showcase Japan and Asian conference for The Linux Foundation.
A key lesson that IBM has learned, Frye said, is the importance of influencing, rather than attempting to control. The best way to achieve influence is for organizations to give back to the community, develop expertise, and in the process, influence will be earned and they will be able to get the things they need done.