Having just skimmed the locked thread about the poll, I was struck by two things. First and most formost was the comment near the end by dillon, regarding Jim. He wrote:<>I object to this comment. Jim made very reasonable points. To lable his points biased is childish, he was just making arguments that Dillon did not want to hear. Dillon lables arguments he wishes did not exist "biased" , and "not biased" to arguments he agrees with.This community of developers appears very emotionally connected to appreciating the 3rd party work, and its really hard to have a rational discussion in these threads. Do folks realize that to be taken seriously by a successful corp, you need to express yourself as having maturely considered the win-win? Many in these threads feel comfortable bashing MS. Emotional arguments demanding sdk at the time of product release, or product patches rather than the next release, comments that indicate any willingness to consider MS's position are called "biased", brand the discussion as unworthy for MS to consider. I think a better foray into MS would be to ask MS to discuss their view of the 3rd party developers on one of the forums Jim discussed. Just because you've lived the life of a 3rd party developer doesn't mean you understand MS's position on your efforts. Find out if your work is seen as supportive or (perhaps) competitive. Find out if your efforts are viewed as helping sales, or viewed as irrelavent by MS. Then base your next move on what you learn.Don't forget who has the leverage in changing the relationship between developers and MS. Its MS. If you don't have the leverage and still want to affect the change, you ask politely...you don't demand.Bob Bernstein

"Don't forget who has the leverage in changing the relationship between developers and MS. Its MS. If you don't have the leverage and still want to affect the change, you ask politely...you don't demand."Hmmm, I used to have some very bright developers working for me that used the latter approach. Key word here is "used to." ;)Racartronit means something, but I just can't remember what