Same here. For me the 1996 JavaONE Conference was a great reunion of former Windows - Microsoft Developer Network members i had not seen since the old OS2-Windows Conference days. It was clear to me then that much of the Internet wave surge back then was charged by developers and investors dissaffected with Microsoft and the Windows monopoly.

What people at that first JavaONE Confernece were looking for was a means to convert the Interent into a full fledged computational platform; augmenting the ubiquitous communications, access and exchange grid with web ready applications. They sought an alternative to Windows platform development.

One of the more prominent memes back then was provided by the rather small but vocal FOSS developers community attending the conference. They had this strong belief that much of the value of the Internet was captured in this phrase, "Owned by none, used by all".

For anyone familiar with the abusive monopolist's tactics, the meme was quite resonant. So much so that the openness of Java became a serious issue dooging Sun for years. I've always thought Sun paid an iincredible price for the reprehensible business practices of Microsoft. In early times, Java would have rode the same wave of application developer take up that Windows enjoyed in the early 90's. The monopolist however had changed the rules forever. And that's actually a good thing.

Thanks for writing about your journey Mike. I'm looking forward to your blogervations.