Why is reverse engineering needed? (Score 1)

Yesterday I attended a Microsoft seminar on .NET. From what I can see is .NET is a brand name (like ActiveX). This brand's products use w3c approved technologies such as XML, http, and SOAP. C# looks like a nice blend of Java and C (NOT C++ Amen). In other words, the interface level is non-propriotary. Why reverse engineer their OS? Just write web services for linux ground up and adhere to w3c interface standards. That's what IBM and Sun are doing.