* Japan has a good system to bring international researchers into Japan, .. like me. (Especially to Tokyo and Kyoto) We tend to stay for a short period of time then go home. It’s much faster to download Linux than to try and get English Windows. There are enough day-to-day challenges outside of research to eat time away that might otherwise go for software development. There is a big tendency to use it and leave it.

* Japan is a very “inside / outside” -centric place. Japanese people often find it easier (psychologically) to do their own thing without asking for help or sharing.

* Japanese language barrier is pretty big and intimidating–from both sides.

… There is activity in Ubuntu ja. For all I know that could be draining people from Fedora.

Unless someone was native-level in English, Japanese, and Fedora it’d be hard to facilitate increased contribution from Japan.