Late 2005, I attended OSS Global Emerging Technology Executive Summit in Taipei. I presented that Sun's Solaris, newly open-sourced then, will be a perfect foundation for an economy that has a large OEM/ODM element. Two years later, I spoke at ICOS 2007 (International Conference on Open Source), again organized by III (Institute for Information Industry).

This time, Sun has thrived much more. Not only Solaris, Java and SPARC are also open-sourced. And ODF (Open Document Format) is now an ISO standard. Sun is now iconic in the open-source community, defining new territories and enabling possibilities. I felt the buzz in the audience. First time in their memory, a complete stack CPU, OS, development environment, and productivity tools for a wide range of solutions are available at their fingertips. Add own innovations, stir with good business senses, sprinkle finance to personal taste, no need for wheel re-invention, and a business will flourish. This is exciting.

We talked about an embedded system choosing SPARC for the processor. We talked about collaborative programs with universities on system design courses. We talked about possible new business surrounding this new eco-system. We were all excited.

The afternoon panel was on ODF. The audience, a roomful, had no mercy with the government. "Of course we will adopt ODF," responded one official. "We just need to manage the transition." The audience was not patient with the pace. I was grinning wide, but trying hard not to show.