Bad example: Apple has an HFS+ implementation for Windows included in their BootCamp package. There are various utilities for Windows that can also access HFS+

Bad example: Apple has an HFS+ implementation for Windows included in their BootCamp package. There are various utilities for Windows that can also access HFS+ volumes in userspace including MacDrive, TransMac and HFS Explorer. Additionally Linux supports HFS+ and Apple's own HFS+ implementation is open source. (you could actually boot Darwin on any PC and access the data that way) Anyway.. All closed source software is inherently vendor locked. If that's the point you're trying to make I agree. It seems we were talking about how a company chooses to sell their closed source software which is a different issue. For example, if I had all my data on an NTFS formatted drive I would need a Windows computer to read that data (ignoring for now there are other ways of doing this via third party tools -- but none of them are developed or supported by Microsoft) My choice is HP, Dell, Acer, etc but I'm still vendor locked to Microsoft. Same deal. Microsoft abstracts their vendor lock away from hardware in the PC world -- in other areas such as the Zune, Xbox 360 they also include hardware. Open source is the only way to be free from vendor lock for people who are concerned about it. For the most part there are simple work arounds in the closed source world so it's not usually a major problem. (which is why most people don't care I think)