Sorry Timmy, but let's be honest: the reason Microsoft is where they
are today is because they understand three things: (a) the "Field of
Dreams" technology era is over, (b) they understand that their customers
are their partners, and will pay $$$ to buy / keep customers, and (c)
they play the best product marketing game on the planet. Couple that
with the more insidious and subtle (d) --- they're figuring out how to
subvert the standards process to their own ends --- and you have a
powerful opponent. The net result is the situation we all hate --- that
MS can shovel pure technological horseshit down the throats of every
technology consumer on the planet and make them believe they're being
served caviar at below cost out of the pure benevolent genius of Bill
Gates' soul. (If he has one.)
The infighting in the open source community actually isn't
shortsightedness, except in perhaps a strategic, holistic sense. I see
it as a serious if overly-semantic battle of where to draw the lines and
where to make concessions -wrt- the definition and philosophy of open
source, for the greater good. Not that I agree with the current
position; IMO, anything is better than nothing... but I'm sure that if
you examined the positions a little more closely you would find that
there's some substance in both camps.
jb