Much of the conference involved speakers from think tanks, academia and government. The last panel featured European business executives. The message? Interoperability is a natural result of marketplace forces. Economic growth is more likely to occur both in a market and for the market participants when interoperability is present. This market reality in no way pits open source software against proprietary software, both of which can embrace interoperability.

It seems to go without saying, but as previous blogs should have revealed, it needs to be repeated. Fujitsu Siemens CEO Pierfilippo Roggero - who has seen the spectrum of interoperability with previous employers Honeywell and Apple - also is the head of an Italian association of ICT companies called Assinform. The aim of that trade group, he said, is to promote openness and interoperability.

"Open source is a good source of competition" to proprietary software, Roggero said. "It's wrong to think of a battle," he said. Instead, all software must "answer the request of the customer." Microsoft's Umberto Paolucci agreed, saying "both methods are valid."

The session brought to my mind Jonathan Zuck's statement earlier in the day, that the so-called "battle" is a political one, not one of technology.