Companies Like Microsoft
Craig Andera hits on a note that I agree with fully: there are multiple kinds of Kool-Aid in circulation, drinking too much of any one kind makes your mouth a vibrant color and really isn't good for you.
If I said J2EE or .NET and you have emphatic feelings one way or the other, if you associate absolute good and evil with either side of the equation, then you teeth and brain are rotting, you're just working off the flawed notion that your flavor of Kool-Aid is better than the other zealots' Kool-Aid. It's all just sugary water of varying hues and taste.
So if you tell me you think Microsoft is nearly 100% good or 100% bad, if you tell me OSS is either the way to enlightenment or economic collapse, if you think the fate of the world hinges on any of this, then I'm forced to discount your world view: it's simply not fuzzy enough to be of use to me.
Now, that said, while I agree with this notion, I don't really agree that saying “companies like Microsoft“ makes a whit of difference. Sure it does if you're someone who can visualize a smooth continuum between conceptual black and white, but if the person resembles any of the people I've heard talking about lock-in in recent months and years, then you're just parsing words--the underlying meaning is just the same.
Here's what I think makes a difference: All large companies would like to lock us into their proprietary offerings so they can rule the world.
IBM would be locking people in left and right if they still could. They used to, it was nearly their undoing. You could argue they've learned a lesson Microsoft hasn't yet absorbed, you could also argue that they just weren't as good as Microsoft in the first place. Either way it's all who's on top. Newsflash: large public technology companies care about one thing first and foremost, and it's not you, it's not what's going to positively impact society in the most meaningful way. Nope. If it happens along the way to meeting earnings estimates, so be it--it's a great marketing story they can use.
I remember people arguing that if Apple's technology ended up marginalized, it would be the beginning of the end. Smart people, useful people, not the people I'd normally nominate for some sort of Darwinian experimental regiment involving giant catapults[1]. I was more concerned with trying to keep the two versions of The Juror separate and wondering how I avoided wearing white high-top aerobic Reeboks. The world didn't end.
I work primarily with Microsoft technologies. It's where I came from, it's what I do. They're really not that different than other competitive technologies, and I wonder how much aggregate time has been wasted arguing whose is faster, stronger, longer? To what end?
I just don't feel the other flavors of Kool-Aid are that much better or that much more complicated to start drinking at a later date if the world runs out of mine.
Postscript: Rory jabs another needle in the same vein. What if I don't want to be black or white? What if I want to be #333? What if I want to be someone who specializes in .NET technologies and also develops open-source software?
What if I use LAMP for some things, Java for others, .NET for most things, and don't get too bogged down in which one wants to save the world?
What if I could give a crap which one is the technology equivalent of skin-popping heroin? What if I don't think Satan is involved in any way, shape or form? What if I just think Satan is a Czech who plays for the Sabres?
[1] After-the-fact catapaults grifted from Early Adopter.