He reiterated this during his keynote presentation at the fourth Malaysia Government Open Source Software Conference (MyGOSSCON 2010), which is an annual conference hosted by Malaysia Administration and Manpower Planning Unit (MAMPU). The event was held on 2-3 November, 2010 at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre.

Themed “Innovation for National Transformation”, the MyGOSSCON 2010 was the second MAMPU collaboration with MDeC. Working closely with MDeC’s Open Source Unit – Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC), the event was organized to support the government’s effort to foster growth and adoption of the open source initiative for both public and private sector. Designed to expound on the concept of open source, the conference focused on the significance of using open source software (OSS) as an effective enabler and how it can contribute positively to the national transformation agenda in achieving Vision 2020.

Drawing a turnout of more than 1,000,000 visitors, the event featured the launch of four products, which OSCC jointly developed with MAMPU, using state-of-the-art 3D animation powered with OSS during the grand opening. In addition, MyGOSSCON 2010 also featured exhibitions, OSS case study awards and OSS-relevant competitions.

During his address, Datuk Badlisham observed that there had been significant growth in revenue earned from and export sales of open source solutions over the past three years and that this was complimented by increased investment in R&D into open source solutions. The number of companies participating in the open sources sphere has grown by 37% to 169 companies in 2009, with a collective earning of close to RM1.13 billion in professional services and customized software developments. The revenue made by the MSC Malaysia companies through open source solutions has increased 60% - a giant leap in three years. Export revenue grew 41% to RM512 million, while R&D spending skyrocketed 39% to RM167 million in 2009.

Other than the financial support provided by MSC Malaysia to qualified companies and individuals, like the research and development grants, pre-seed funding scheme and ICON Apps grant, MDeC is also currently providing training on Java, MySQL, Linux and PHP. MDeC is planning to further collaborate with the open source market leaders, namely Red Hat via the Red Hat Academy Program, and Microsoft via the PHP Academy Program, an online self-paced training facility where certificates are issued upon completion of its PHP on Windows platform training.

Datuk Badlisham concluded that MSC Malaysia will continue to be the proponent of the open source industry to strengthen the equilibrium of Open Source Ecosystems, which consists of five components, namely Business, Government, Research and Development, Education and the Open Source Community.

Other keynote speakers for the conference included Dato’ Dr Nor Aliah binti Mohd Zahri, Deputy General Director, MAMPU, Timothy Ney, Co-founder, Linux Greenhouse, Paul Kangro, Chief Technology Officer – APAC, Novell, Daniel Ng, Senior Director of Marketing, Asia Pacific, Red Hat Asia Pacific, and Ryusuke Kajiyama, MyQSL Business Unit, Oracle Corp,

MSC Malaysia R&D grant recipients Quantum Beez and Arahe, as well as ICON Apps and Pre-Seed Funds recipients Xadira Games and Teratotec showcased their winning products developed on open source technology at the exhibition during this event. The exhibition component emphasized the readiness of the ICT industry to support the implementation of the Malaysian Public Sector OSS Program, featured 60 booths with 20 allocated for Public Sector agencies and 40 for Private Sector and OSS Community participants. Services and products that were showcased included a list of varied OSS products, solutions and services, ranging from emerging technologies to mature and proven products.

In conjunction with MyGOSSCON 2010, there was a 36-hour OSS Web Development Contest that was endorsed by The Malaysia Book of Records as the “Longest OSS Programming Event”. The contest was designed to promote and cultivate high-level skill development for open source web applications in Malaysia. This is to enable local OSS web application development communities to grow and establish themselves so they can contribute and develop Malaysia’s still growing OSS ecosystem.

Cash prizes include a hefty RM8,500 Best-of-the-Best cash bonus for the overall winner. Winners of the three different categories: the Government Agency Group, the Student Group and the Open Group, walked home with RM1,500 cash prize each, whereas the runner-ups of each category won RM600 cash prize each.

Besides that there was also the OpenOffice.org Competition that had secondary school students taking part in. The competition was designed to increase students’ engagements in the use of OpenOffice.org as a preliminary step to identify the OSS and further foster innovative use of OpenOffice.org. This competition promoted the use of OSS from the school level and raised awareness and knowledge of OSS among school students.

The major highlight of MyGOSSCON 2010 however, was the OSS Case Study Awards 2010, an awards ceremony that had the objective of providing incentives for government agencies to engage in the implementation of OSS and to showcase their efforts as well as proactively engage in knowledge sharing with other public sector departments.

These awards are used to encourage the deployment of OSS amongst Government agencies in support of the Malaysian OSS Master Plan. It recognized the most innovative and effective OSS implementation among Government agencies and public universities in boosting the OSS ecosystem.

In many ways, these awards are critical indicators as to how well they perform and operate with OSS systems and how well they manage to do so under MAMPU’s purview.

Overall MyGOSSCON 2010 was considered a key benchmark indicator as to how well the open source community is performing and how far they have grown. Certainly MAMPU and MSC Malaysia will want to expand this sector further and cultivate an even bigger community of open source adopters. It is a matter of how it will take MyGOSSCON 2010’s success and leverage on it for more growth for next year.