...so goes the familiar Microsoft rant, as expressed by <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6304687408656696643">Steve Ballmer</a>. What he should have added, of course, is "They had better not be too clever if they want to work with us!". A guy called Jamie Cansdale has found this out to his cost by developing his <a href="http://www.testdriven.net/default.aspx">Testdriven.NET</a> plugin for Visual Studio. Basically, Microsoft are going to sue him for using APIs they encouraged people to use, mainly because something he's giving away for free might compete with one of their products. It's worth <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/05/microsoft_mvp_threats/">reading this article on it</a>, including the <a href="http://weblogs.asp.net/nunitaddin/pages/microsoft-lawyers-chapter-3.aspx">increasingly threatening emails</a> they are sending him.<br /><br />Every day I'm glad that I don't have to develop on Windows. Not only would it mean actually using Windows (something that I can avoid completely now, thankfully), but Windows developers have such an overpriced monoculture to deal with when it comes to development, that it pretty much stifles innovation... unless you have piles of cash, of course. There's a pretty good reason why all the best new ideas are coming from non-Windows platforms, and by acting like they are in this story, Microsoft are only going to make the problem worse for themselves.