[4] Garbee was formerly on the board of directors of the Linux Foundation where he represented the interests of individual members and developers.

In September 2008, he received a "Lutèce d'Or" during the French event Paris Capitale du Libre as the FLOSS personality of the year.

In March 2011, Bdale Garbee agreed to join the FreedomBox Foundation's board of directors and chair its technical advisory committee.

[5] He retired at the end of August 2012 from long service as the Open Source & Linux Chief Technologist at Hewlett-Packard.

[10] At linux.conf.au 2009, Garbee's 27-year-old beard was removed by Linus Torvalds to raise funds for Tasmanian Devil facial tumour disease research.