Sony Has Begun Accelerating Their Contributions To Open-Source / Linux

At last week's Linux Foundation Open-Source Summit / Embedded Linux Conference there was a Sony presentation about their history with open-source/Linux and how since last year they have been "accelerating" their open-source contributions.

Hiroyuki Fukuchi and Kazumi Sato of Sony had an interesting presentation about how they have utilized open-source/Linux over the past two decades in their consumer electronics and how their relationship with open-source has evolved over that time. It also covered their work on establishing an open-source program office at the company and how their contributions have most recently changed.

Since starting off using Linux on digital video recorders in the early 2000's, they now view their embedded Linux usage beyond the growth stage with relying on Linux/open-source for a wide range of products from robotics and medical products to consumer electronics.

In recent years Sony has established more internal training around open-source, clearing up the policies for their engineers to contribute to upstream open-source, and now with their "2020-" phase they plan to "accelerate contribution" to Linux. They also plan on "expanding from electronics to other sectors" such as game and film areas.

There isn't a session recording of Sony's talk currently available but those interested in how they are reportedly ramping up their contributions can be found via this slide deck (PDF).