Re:let me get this straight ... (Score 2, Insightful)

Linux programmers aren't Java programmers, that's why. Java programmers aren't bound to any O/S! :) Ditto for Mono programmers. But seriously, in any discussion we need to segragage the language, from the class libarary framework, from the runtime platform from the operating system. Java, C#, VB.NET etc. are languages, which are largely similar. Some developers love features of one of these over the other. .NET Framework, Mono, J2x# etc. are class library frameworks which are all extremely useful in their own rights and limited in their own ways. CLR, Mono Runtime, JVM, J2EE app server etc. are the runtime platforms Windows, Linux, Solaris etc. are the OS. So, a Linux programmer, namely one whose job it is to write Linux programs is more likely to write in a language that is suited for Linux, say 'C', or if they prefer to move up the stack, and write it to run on a linux compatible runtime like JVM or Mono, then they'll be bound to the language and frameworks for that runtime, right? Bottom line: There are choices -- plenty of choices, and that's a good thing. Finally -- there is an alternative, that allows you to unify the stack at the framework level down, giving you the most flexible choice -- and that is from Mainsoft (disclosure: I love their product so much I applied to work for them, and they accepted) -- and called Visual MainWin for J2EE with a developer edition called Grasshopper. What does it do? Allow you to virtualize all of this by unifying the .NET and Java stack through Mono. You can use VS.NET to code in .NET, compile to Java and run on Linux. It's a beautiful thing....