One of the main draws--and selling point--of open source technology is its much celebrated developer ecosystem. But, according to an industry expert, this community spirit seems to be lacking in Asia.

Asia is in the middle of a mass adoption wave of open source technology, and the floodgates of innovation will open following this wave in two to three years, according to open source vendors.

The successful deployment of free and open source software (FOSS) in projects in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Latin America are described in a publication entitled "Breaking Barriers" by UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme.

Organizations in Asia are not as ready to go open source for key business applications, experts in the region say. Over in the United Kingdom and United States, it is a different story with inclination growing, a survey has shown. An Accenture study of 300 large public- and private-sector organizations in Ireland, the U.K. and U.S.

Companies in the Asia-Pacific region are warming up to open source software for practical rather than religious reasons.

It's hard to ignore Asia lately, certainly from an open source perspective. Many Linux and open source players are looking at the potential customer bases on this continent (especially the eastern nations) and practically salivating.

Software developers, academics, development groups and decision makers from Central Asia and Afghanistan met in the Tajik capital Dushanbe to see how the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) could be of help to the region.

The main factor working against the growth of open source software in Asia has been the ready availability of pirated versions of Microsoft's software. However, open source advocates are gaining traction in places such as Nepal, where Linux is growing in popularity.

A smaller proportion of Linux users in Asia sign up for enterprise support services, but that is "okay" by Novell global strategic partners' chief technologist Marcin Kurc.