IBM recently marked a milestone with 10 years of participation in the Linux community. At the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit recently, Dr. Dan Frye, vice president of open system development at IBM, gave a keynote in which he reflected on the achievement and offered advice for other organizations and developers that want to improve their participation in the community.
One of the hardest lessons learned was about control - or, to be more precise, the lack of it, writes Sean Michael Kerner in his coverage of Frye's keynote on internet.com. There is nothing that one can do to control individuals or communities, and if one tries, there is actually the risk of making things worse, Kerner quotes Frye as telling the audience. Instead, what people need to do is influence, and the way to achieve that influence is 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.
Read Sean Michael Kerner's article, "You Can't Control Linux," at CIO Update on internet.com.