> Why shouldn't hobbyists pay for tool? Developers are less likely (significantly so in my view) to invest their time in a platform that treats tinkerers and h

> Why shouldn't hobbyists pay for tool? Developers are less likely (significantly so in my view) to invest their time in a platform that treats tinkerers and hobbyists as second class citizens by providing hamstrung free tools. I've always firmly believed that the MS development stack is both impressive technically and wonderful to work in. It seems to me they could have a much more vibrant open source and free application community if they gave away full copies of Visual Studio to individuals and continued to charge businesses.