I just read a post on Channel 9 where a member states, and I quote (name withheld to protect the innocent) “Right now I'm stuck doing applications work, sometimes on the windows platform, and I hate it.” Needless to say the rest of the post glorified Open Source model, Linux etc -- usual stuff.

I've been working with Microsoft technologies almost exclusively for close to ten years now. In the meantime, Windows as a platform changed (improved a lot), Microsoft grew stronger and weaker at the same time, some new competitors arrived (both in the Web space and on server/desktop) one of which is Linux.

If for some reason Microsoft lost dominance on the desktop (where most of my work is) and Linux took over, that would most likely mean that market for Windows programmers would shrunk and there would be more work for Linux developers. If I hated Linux development and refused to learn more about that platform I would end up doing the same the guy above does. But if I didn't like what I was doing I would be a lot less successful, on top of the fact that I'm ignoring the larger market for my services. That makes no economical sense and would make me miserable most of the time (working on what I hate).

I choose not to be religious about technology (just as much as I am not religious about the brand of my household appliances, car or furniture). If market switches into another direction, so will I. If I am strong enough to lead the change, that's something else - but there are not many among us who are capable of that.