"Not to go too far, but Microsoft is probably used by most people out there"
About this Quote
“Not to go too far” is the tell: a comic little hedge before a statement so blindingly obvious it borders on parody. Miguel de Icaza, a scientist best known in open-source circles, isn’t trying to reveal a hidden truth about Microsoft. He’s signaling the constraint everyone in software feels but rarely states plainly: whatever your ideals, the mass market has gravitational pull.
The line works because it’s simultaneously understatement and concession. “Probably” and “most people out there” soften the claim, but they also perform a kind of diplomatic realism. In the free-software world, where arguments often arrive dressed as moral crusades, de Icaza’s phrasing reads like someone stepping away from the pulpit to speak in the language of adoption curves and installed base. He’s reminding you that platforms aren’t just technical choices; they’re social facts, reinforced by workplaces, schools, file formats, and the mundane need for compatibility.
Context matters: de Icaza’s career sits at the seam between insurgent tooling and corporate ecosystems (GNOME, Mono, later work with Microsoft). That seam produces a particular kind of rhetorical posture: pragmatic, slightly weary, allergic to purity tests. The subtext is not admiration for Microsoft so much as a sober admission that “best” doesn’t win by itself. Ubiquity does.
Even the vagueness is strategic. It avoids picking a fight while still puncturing denial. If you’re building software meant to matter, you ignore Microsoft’s reach at your own peril.
The line works because it’s simultaneously understatement and concession. “Probably” and “most people out there” soften the claim, but they also perform a kind of diplomatic realism. In the free-software world, where arguments often arrive dressed as moral crusades, de Icaza’s phrasing reads like someone stepping away from the pulpit to speak in the language of adoption curves and installed base. He’s reminding you that platforms aren’t just technical choices; they’re social facts, reinforced by workplaces, schools, file formats, and the mundane need for compatibility.
Context matters: de Icaza’s career sits at the seam between insurgent tooling and corporate ecosystems (GNOME, Mono, later work with Microsoft). That seam produces a particular kind of rhetorical posture: pragmatic, slightly weary, allergic to purity tests. The subtext is not admiration for Microsoft so much as a sober admission that “best” doesn’t win by itself. Ubiquity does.
Even the vagueness is strategic. It avoids picking a fight while still puncturing denial. If you’re building software meant to matter, you ignore Microsoft’s reach at your own peril.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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