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by kprobst 5592 days ago
There are Java projects that use Oracle as the back end. Since Java is Free Software (technically at least) and Oracle is not, would you consider that to be a failure for Free Software?

Do you use a binary blob NVidia driver on your Linux computer? Would that be a case of not staying in the reservation?

You're a Rails developer, aren't you? twitter was hailed for a while as validation for Rails and Ruby in general. That is, until they realized it wasn't scaling and had to use something else. Failure for RoR? I guess they weren't religious enough (as you say) to stick with what they had and gosh darn it, make it work at all costs. After all, you can run your blog on RoR, just like you can on MVC. If you imply that using Redis on Linux to scale invalidates MVC as a viable platform, how is using TokyoCabinet (or whatever) to scale RoR any different? Unless of course your argument is purely ideological.

We make decisions on what technology to use based on what we know. On our areas of expertise and knowledge. If we pay X for something, it's because we believe that X is a good price for what we're getting back. If we decide to use Y because it's free, it's because it works the same as Z, which is expensive or limited.

If there are "true" MS loyalists out there who make decisions based on their adoration of the company, then that's their problem. More power to them and all that.

And by the way, if you feel that this represents a form of "capitulation" for the MS stack, then you need to go talk to MS about it, not StackOverflow. Because they made their technical decisions based on practicality, not religion (as you say). And besides, if it's supposed to be so embarrassing, why mention it at all? No one is forcing them to disclose what platform they happen to be running their key value store on.