> Free as in beer would make Windows so much more competitive as a development and deployment environment. Windows Server is unlikely to be free any time soon.

> Free as in beer would make Windows so much more competitive as a development and deployment environment. Windows Server is unlikely to be free any time soon. Windows desktop might be, if they can plug/bundle some subscription models into it (perhaps office). Even if Server was free (improbable like I said), that alone might not make it a competitive development or deployment environment. A lot of important work currently happening involves Open Source collaboration, and a free-as-in-beer ecosystem will not be able to take advantage of it. Earlier today, I was reading up on how AppFabric (scaling middleware) is evolving. Looks like it won't, and will soon join the other near-abandoned frameworks (Workflow Foundation, WPF, Silverlight) on the Windows stack. The future of scaling (on Windows) will have something to do with containers just like Linux or BSD. A Windows only approach to solving general industry problems is not going to cut it anymore. In such a scenario, the primary development and deployment platforms supporting important industry trends will be free-as-in-speech Open Source platforms. Add: Not saying MS is going anywhere. They have plenty of momentum.