Sun.com Customer Experience and Stuff: Notes from the Sun.com customer experience team.

Last week I had the fortune of participating in the Open Source @ Sun Summit hosted by Simon Phipps, our illustrious chief open source officer. The people in the room are Sun's unsung heroes, putting in the long hours building community and committing the code to bring us the cool applications we use everyday (GNOME, Glassfish) and probably take for granted. It was a humbling experience.

Here are some of the memes that stuck:

1. Most people don't want to pay for software (and that's perfectly OK).
   The best software is free — a benefit not lost on developing countries, students and educators, and people like you and me. Putting technology into the hands of many leads to economic opportunity for all, since people bring their favorite open source apps into the workplace.
2. Convenience = revenue.
   There is a reason why people flock to the simple, powerful and elegant — they value their time, and will regard companies that satisfy needs with the least pain involved. Unbuntu, anyone?
3. Sun actively participates in many externally hosted communities.
   And, those projects end up in products like the Java Desktop System.
4. Most open source developers work for a corporation.
   Proof that open-source is a viable business model, beside building good will with the community.
5. "Any community is only as good as its people."
   Glynn Foster nailed it. Beyond coding brilliance, soft skills count for a lot, too. The most successful projects always have a person tirelessly emailing, settling differences, and exercising diplomacy with the community.
6. Never control, always influence.
   Everyone likes to be treated fairly. Consensus-building and diplomacy count as much code contributions, and are qualities demonstrated by the most successful project leaders.
7. "If you don't invest in community management, there will be no community."
   Bless you, Simon Phipps. Now I just need to convince a few of our stakeholders of the same.
8. Mojo Rising!
   Do people flock to your company site to download the latest software release, and tell their friends about it? Congratulations, you have karma. So hard to build, yet so easy to lose, it's the quality that companies dream about and lust after.
9. Why Can't We All Get Along?
   Even with most honorable and sincere intentions, agreements and licenses meant to protect the spirit of openness and freedom of open source are twisted by the crafty few, at the expense of all. May the GPL prevail!
10. "Innovation Happens Elsewhere."
    Enough said.