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Why Microsoft Will Never Make .NET Truly Portable
Michelle Meyers writes "Just days before Microsoft claimed to be making parts of the .NET CLR "available" to other platforms, NeoSmart Technologies had published an article bemoaning and blasting Microsoft's abuse of it's developers by pretending .NET was a true cross-platform framework when they're doing everything in their power to stop it from being just that. Of interest is NeoSmart's analysis of how Microsoft has no problem making certain portions of .NET available to Mac users — just so long as its distributed under an "open source" license that forbids any and all use of the code except for educational purposes — yet are terrified of the very thought of .NET being available to *nix users, even if that's to the benefit of .NET developers everywhere. Even more interesting is one of the comments on that article linking to legal documents in which Microsoft employees discuss the (im)possibility of creating a cross-platform code and UI framework, years before the .NET project even started!"
Apple did make a decision that was adversarial to their business model. Steve Jobs laid down the gauntlet and asked the record industry to allow them to sell music DRM free. Of course, the anti-apple crowd claimed that Jobs was just grandstanding and would never get rid of DRM because it allowed Apple to lock in iPod users. Then....low and behold... Apple got rid of DRM.
Apple does things that are good for the consumer. Their whole business philosophy is to compete on merit by producing "insanely great products", and not by removing consumer choice through lock-in, etc.
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Regarding your sig: you and your imaginary friend can eat me. Every year i get christmas shoved down my throat harder than republican economic policy, and every year it starts earlier, and the last thing i need is you spewing it at me too. If christians celebrated christmas with proper reservation like other religions celebrate their holidays you wouldn't have this problem.