>I've been reading posts on Channel9 from people who seem to have >gotten some religion about OSS and are bent on a Jihad against anything >and everything Microsoft does.

Its actually been a lot less extreme than i was expecting. This is my first post BTW, the formatting might be a little odd.

> And why doesn't anybody call Cisco a Monopolist?
Because Cisco doesn't touch the lives of many people in ways they actually notice. Most people don't have a clue about network infrastructure, and this includes a lot of OpenSource people. Cisco VRRP is a good example of how screwed up they can be.
(left hand sidebar http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35)

>Let's count the number of Microsoft employees involved with W3C efforts >and compare that to the number of Novel ones, shall me?

Two points, firstly MS playing nicely with others is a new, very welcome side of the beast. Look at Office file formats, IE and domain authentication for more the more traditional approaches.

Secondly using Novell as an example is a little harsh, at least pick a company thats still relevant  Wink

>Where would SOAP, XQuery and many others be without Microsoft's >involvement in them? Give credit where credit is due, please.

They'd be IBM's babies. Which wouldn't be much of a better thing IMHO. Microsoft may have put a lot of effort into these but they ain't the only company involved, i like to think that someone like IBM or Sun would have head hunted Don Box if MS  had let him slip through.

>By the way, here's a free C++ compiler and toolset from Microsoft. Go >knock yourself out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/

I prefer http://gcc.gnu.org/ its always nice to get another option though.

>And Gee, you want a great free database? how about this: >http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/downloads/download.asp

Lets not confuse good business sense with altruism. MSDE has always been about making upgrade paths to SQL Server easy, the first ones always free Wink I'm not saying its a bad idea just that its not done out of some kindness.

>Oh yeah, and don't I recall Microsoft actually investing in a Open Source >tool company called ActiveState?

And Redhat. Although those shares were sold a while ago.

You have to admit that MS is becoming a lot more open and community facing than its ever been before. Unfortunatly way too many FOSS people stopped dealing with MS with Windows 95/98 and haven't kept up with the improvements in both techincal and openness. Its just a shame they are the most visible ones.

Disclamer: I admin a network of Windows and Linux boxes, I've been doing Linux for the last six years and i only came back to using MS when Windows 2000 came out.