Mix07 is finally over. I'm packing my bags and leaving Las Vegas, but before I go, I wanted to reflect on the events of the last week. It's been very interesting.

My post, “Seven Reasons Microsoft Loves Open Source”, instantly polarized both communities. Microsoft developers felt I didn't give the company enough credit, and open-source developers questioned why I was giving them credit at all. Most everyone missed my goal: to give a voice to those in the community that would not be in attendance at the panel. Sadly, out of the hundreds of comments hardly anyone gave me a list of the changes they would like to see the company make.

Thanks to an amazing panel, we didn’t waste our opportunity. Each panelist pinned Microsoft to the mat on a number of issues. Miguel de Icaza (Mono), Mike Schroepfer (Mozilla), Andi Gutmans (Zend), and Rob Conery (SubSonic) were fantastic. I thought Mike made one of the most important points:

“One of the reasons the web is so successful is because a lot of it is open . . . anything that takes us away from that takes us away from the creativity people have when they spontaneously remix applications on the web.”

This and other gems supplied by the panelists made it one of the most popular panels at Mix07. More importantly, members of the audience took Microsoft to task on their lack of support for open standards and projects like Mono. Sam Ramji (Director of Open Source) and Microsoft took the punches in stride—it was like watching the first Rocky. Everyone came away with something of value.

I still wish I’d received more feedback from you all. We not only need to be objective, we need to be involved. If Microsoft provides us with a chance for open discussion that will be critical of them in a public forum, we shouldn't hesitate to take it. We owe it to all sides to take the opportunity seriously and provide some logical foundation for the tough questions/comments to be taken seriously.

It's time to stop complaining about proprietary companies, and change their place in the market through cooperation, collaboration, and openness. Let’s stop talking about being open and do it.

• digg it