For those of you too young to remember check-out Microsoft's history of embrace and extend, their Linux/SCO patent racket and their refusal to implement web standards when Internet Explorer had dominant market share. If you had lived through this you would NEVER trust Microsoft no matter how loudly they trumpet their absurd claim to be supporters of Linux and open source. They only reason Microsoft support Linux and open source is because they failed to destroy them. .Net is just another of their desperate attempts to lock everyone into the Microsoft Way before revealing the hidden lock-in.