F# is a great language, and Petricek's enthusiasm for it is really inspiring. However, my major problem with the foundation in its current form is that they app

F# is a great language, and Petricek's enthusiasm for it is really inspiring. However, my major problem with the foundation in its current form is that they appear to be at least informally very closely tied to Microsoft. And I don't mean the cool people from MSR who developed the language in the first place. For example, the official MS party-line has been to withhold releasing standalone compilers unless they are bundled with some "free" visual studio crap. Compiling the compiler from source every time I want to check something on another machine is simply not an option and it's one of the primary reasons I haven't moved to the new 3.0 version. That's precisely the kind of problem a truly independent foundation could easily solve, but so far they haven't demonstrated any willingness to move in a way that could be considered competing with Microsoft's own products.