Looking for unprejudiced developers (and conversation)

Most of the developers I know were once centrally Microsoft, happily so. Over the years we all became frustrated with the lock-in and mismanaged direction, though we can all still see the good stuff that's still there. We were never MS fan-boys and we haven't flopped to become Linux zealots. Instead, we try to be open and balanced, as they're just all tools.

I've been frustrated by Microsoft over the years, partly because of the evil, and partly because of the poorly focused direction (COM? ActiveX? DCom? Assemblies?) and the frequent doublespeak (they're killing the language). But, it's an ailment of a large, successful company more than anything, and they still produce some great software. And it's not unlike IBM 20 or so years ago.

When I switched from Windows to Gnu/Linux (Redhat/Fedora/Debian mostly) about 5 years ago, I found a vast developer's playground. It was like the old days of Compuserve, which was a candy aisle of freeware. Free software is still like that for me, there's lot of it to explore, and I can see the source code without significant restriction. I can *use* the source, and I can share the source ... which is something geeks love to do. The Windows world by the mid-90s was very closed (still is mostly), something that's really restrictive as a developer.

These days I develop for several platforms including Windows. Is Windows the worst? Not by a long shot (Palm probably is). Is it the best? At some things, yes, especially if you want to ship something rich to loads of people. Web applications, a la LAMP, can do a lot, but not everything. In the end, I have to respect Windows as a platform, even if it isn't my first choice for personal use.

The zealots of any platform fail to find balance. Yes, Microsoft is an Evil corporation (many wrongs have been proven). Yes, Linux can be liberating. Yes, Macs are sexy. Yes, Alpha was cool. But, there are many counters to these things: Microsoft is ubiquitous and more than adequate, Linux is sharp and pointy around the edges, and Macs are vastly overpriced. All in balance.

What I have found from most windows advocates (users and developers) is that they assume that we are all free software zealots first, and that technology matters second; they just are not willing to accept that some people use OSS because they actually find it to be better quality software and not because they think "Microsoft is evil".

There are two conversations.

One has to do with specific technical issues: is IIS better than Apache? In which cases is one better than the other? How do you define better? Less resources? Speed? Scalability? Etc. This is strictly technical, just put the data on the table and decide.

The other conversation has to do with what is fundamental in the OSS world, but (to my knowledge) almost absent in the proprietary software world, and especialy in the MS world: ideology. I mean, I *need* to be free. I need to know that I am not locked by vendor decisions.

Since the latter is far more important to me, what is the point of discussing on the former? It's like discussing which taxation system is better in two different regimes. Who cares? For me it's far more important if it is democracy, communism, dictatorship, etc...

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Is there an independent meta-news site for Microsoft Windows developers and administrators, something like LWN.net for Linux? If so, as editor of Linux Journal, I will make an effort to post any Windows interoperability-related articles there.

Don Marti