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As a MSA from India, I kind of know the answer to this due to my frequent run-ins with the Linux community and RMS himself. See http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/kaushik/archive/2004/04/06/10861.aspx for an example of what I mean. We've also been called 'liars' and 'illegitimate' by RMS for 'brainwashing students' before they have a chance to mature.

It's simple enough. As a 20 year old student, who reads Slashdot and hacks on open source software, would I want to be associated with Microsoft? No.

Why not? Microsoft is a monolith which is known primarily for breaking the law. It killed progress and innovation on the web with IE, Windows is stagnant and MS have apparently lost the ability to ship an OS.

Given how easy it is to get involved with the Linux community and how dynamic it is relative to Microsoft, is it any wonder that I have never met or even heard of an MSA, yet at my university I'm surrounded by people playing with and working on open source software?

An Explorer - What university are you at?

I would also like to state that I it is much easier to get involved with open source if you wish to play around at a very low level, but I believe Microsoft is also making great progress forwards towards the educational environment with the Share Source Initiative (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/default.mspx) and the MSDN Academic Alliance (http://www.msdnaa.com).

I would like to take a moment to thank Microsoft for the MSA program. When it first started at my college, Microsoft gave a lot of stuff out for free. Not only was the free stuff good, but they organized a lot of events and mini training sessions.

I can say that the MSA program has directly benefited and I encourage other student to give it a try.

I disagree with you explorer. I think MS does a lot of great things and if not for them we probably wouldn't be where we are today. MS realized Windows needed a change and that is why they are taking so long with their new OS. They are a monolith, but I think it works out because they set the bar. Companies have to compete with them and MS has to continually work to create the best product to our benefit.

You know, a lot of people say Microsoft has "killed innovation" but how is that quantified? I think saying that Microsoft is known "primarily for breaking" the law is also an unquantified statement.

Microsoft not only has won anti-trust suits, but has complied with regulations that have been recommended to promote competition.

In terms of innovation, I would say exactly the opposite. I have used Linux has my primary operating system along with all the open source packages for a number of years. I don't think the open source community has a better platform than Microsoft at all.

That's not to say that there's anything wrong with open source software. There are certainly many things in the open source community that are better than what we can buy, but as an overall platform, there is much that is lacking. For example, there's a great void in terms of enterprise software. There's no integrted system like outlook + exchange + active directory. There is a similar problem with enterprise level web apps -- I have yet to see a system from the open source community that can compare with .NET.

I don't want to go too far into this enterprise software discussion since most people on this list aren't running enterprise level apps anyway. So I'd also like to point out the fact that there is almost ZERO research in the open source community on usability. In my mind, moving forward with command line interfaces and cryptic configuration files is not the the wave of the future. Microsoft is clearly the leader in speech (and natural language) research and accessibility research. There's also very little progress in terms of mobile devices within the open source community. Linux embedded has made some significant strides, but the integration aspect is still lacking. And thi is largely due to a disconnected system of software development within the open source community.

Again, I have used open source software and there is definitely a place for it. But I really have a hard time understanding people who claim that Microsoft has stunted research when, in fact, Microsoft is the only company that seems to be making real progress in many areas.