Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina Wednesday turned to the pulpit of open source and preached a perfect penguin world with the help of her vision of a merged HP and Compaq.

In her keynote address to the Linux faithful at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York, Fiorina acknowledged the crowd as pioneers and innovators who accelerated the idea of Linux and turned it into an undeniable force.

"A decade ago, this conference couldn't have happened because this movement literally didn't exist," says Fiorina. "But here we all are - challenging conventional wisdom and changing the world all at the same time."

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based computer and printer maker has been a staunch supporter of open source technology. HP Tuesday unveiled its latest Linux-supported business solutions and improved lineup of Linux-based hardware, customized software, and service offerings for the business and telecommunications industries.

Fiorina also outlined several initiatives where the open source community should continue to apply its energy to keep moving Linux forward for customers. These included ease of use, support of the Linux Standard base to reduce the complexity of Linux development and the resolution of the royalty-free standards issue currently being debated in standards circles.

"In HP's view, even the so-called 'Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory' patent licensing would distort the standards selection process to an unacceptable level for Web infrastructure software standards," she said. "We continue to work to draft a policy that requires the W3C to endorse only those recommendations which can be used free of royalties."

But one of the things Fiorina says would really help the Linux cause would be the completion of a pending merger between HP and Compaq Computer, currently valued at $22.83 billion.

"One of the aspects of merging with Compaq that our customers find most appealing is that we are both committed to driving adoption of Linux on the Intel and Itanium platforms. Together, we have an unbeatable R&D team with a focus on both the enterprise and consumer. Together, we'll be in a position to help facilitate progress in standards through our relationships with both the enterprise developers and the open source community, and with customer relationships and support, to help Linux continue to mature as a platform for the enterprise."

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Lately, the merger is turning into a public relations war between HP and the founder's children.

David Packard recently sided with the Hewlett's decision to vote against the deal if it were to come up before shareholders and even launched a 'Vote No HP Compaq' Web site expressing his views.

Last week, HP retaliated with the debut of its own 'Vote The HP Way' support site.

"There are people who find change exciting" says Fiorina. "Others find it exhausting. Some find it exhilarating. Others find it intimidating. Others know they will gain from it. Some fear they will lose from it."

Even though the combined share power of Hewlett's and Packard's children are not enough to prevent the merger from happening, investors and analysts are a bit skittish about the likelihood of the merger happening if the company's namesakes are not 100 percent behind it.

The shareholder vote is set for March.