January 8, 2008 4:42 PM PST
Linus Torvalds on "community" development
Linus Torvalds has sage advice for those companies looking to get involved with "the community." You don't. You join it by contributing code or you hire someone who already is doing so.
This has been Stephe Walli's counsel to Microsoft for years. For companies looking for a shortcut, Linus has a suggestion:
...[T]he easiest way is to find a person who is already a member of the development process or maybe not a very central one, but really - central enough that he's been involved and knows how things works and basically bring that person into the company.
One way or another, companies need to increasingly insert themselves into the open-source conversation. Actions speak louder than words. Code speaks loudest of all.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
