From Sun CEO Scott McNealy at JavaOne:

    ... beware the appeal of the latest software development kit from Microsoft--the conduit through which Microsoft spreads its software standards.

    "The first hit of heroin is free," McNealy said.

I have wondered about this a little. Right now the ASP.NET platform is a free download as is the .NET SDK (also on that page, among other places). I think it's great that they've done this, as it allows anyone with XP and Win2k to get cracking without buying, say, VS.NET.

But if they were to pull this free SDK and the ASP.NET platform after people got awful used to using 'em... well that could be bad news.

I don't see MS doing something quite that stupid; let's face it, applications sell systems -- in this case systems locked to Windows which means more potential buyers of Office. I've always felt developers should be an OS company's best friend. Giving them free heroin is a good idea if you want others to keep buying from your corner. Hrm, the metaphor doesn't extend very gracefully when used like that, but you get the picture.