I think you have it backwards. MS courts developers to make Windows seem like a desirable platform. Courting developers includes building wickedly good develo

I think you have it backwards. MS courts developers to make Windows seem like a desirable platform. Courting developers includes building wickedly good developer tools, but they tend to give them away. The Express editions are free, they give out full Pro versions at most events, etc. The point, though, is that you said "MS is not interested in opening .NET to other platforms" when they demonstrably are. That doesn't mean they're angelic do gooders, or that they don't want to make money, or anything else. It simply means that they are interested in having .NET on other platforms because it somehow suits their purposes.