IMHO, one of the biggest benefits of Microsoft's recent friendliness towards open source has been providing Google competition for mindshare. Both do amazing t

IMHO, one of the biggest benefits of Microsoft's recent friendliness towards open source has been providing Google competition for mindshare. Both do amazing things with and for the open source community, but Google definitely got the benefit of being The large open source company. More competition is heathier for the entire ecosystem. Especially when it spurs executive-level attention towards continued openness.