I got a great comment in response to my “Things are different on the inside” post:

So what if you aren't personally evil? If you are a good developer and do manage to produce not-bug-ridden software, and marketing gets the fruits of your labors and makes a torture device out of it, or a weapon of mass destruction, people will probably associate some of their negative emotions about the product (or how it was used) with You.

Good point, my friend! Good point.

To answer the first question, “So what if you aren’t personally evil?” I’d have to admit that I’m at a loss for words. The best thing I can come up with is that, by not being evil, I’m doing my best to do the things for Microsoft that I think are good for the company without trying to poop in everybody else’s cake at the same time. Aside from that, I can’t see any possible benefit. Thank you for phrasing the situation in such a way that makes me realize it’s quite permissible for me to stop putting all this effort into being the Good Guy and just go full-blown Darth Vader. Evil’s easier anyway, and I like to sleep in on the weekends, so this is going to work out well <whew>.

As for the rest of the quote, one thing that I really appreciate about these so-called “religious debates” is that, thanks to faith, we’re free to change the rules as we go along, completely ignore the facts, and treat hypotheses, or even wild guesses, as reality. It’s like professional wrestling of the soul.

And, as long as we’re pulling all the stops, I’m going to allow myself the pleasure of responding to another portion of your quote with sweet, succulent wild abandon:

[If] marketing gets the fruits of your labors and makes a torture device out of it, or a weapon of mass destruction, people will probably associate some of their negative emotions about the product (or how it was used) with You.

As has been established (and something which would be obvious without any explicit mention), we’re both talking completely out of our asses right now, so there aren’t any rules.

You mentioned "weapon[s] of mass destruction,” so ask yourself this: From which community do you think the Big Bad Terrorists of the World would take bits of software to create their World Domination Super Computer Systems?

Take a wiiiiiiiiiild guess.

Linux is nice and modular, right? It's well suited to embedded systems, right? That makes it a prime candidate for, oh, I don't know...

...the guidance systems for Freedom Destroying Missiles? You bet your ass!

So, here's the score as of now:

Windows - Used to crush the competition on behalf of the marketing department

Linux and Open Source - Used to destroy the Free World (and that’s “free as in speech,” not “free as in beer”)

Intention didn’t matter on behalf of the developers.

So, in the world of open source, I guess I’d have to ask the same question: So what if you aren’t personally evil? If Terrorists get the fruits of your labors and use them to detonate a dirty bomb in a populated area, people will probably associate some of their negative emotions about the project (or how it was used) with You.

That’s right: I don’t care about your personal alignment on the plane of Good/Evil. As of today, in my mind, Linux and Open Source, as a single entity, is responsible for World Terrorist Mayhem.

I’ve seen the light in this religious debate, and it looks like My Team is less evil than Your Team.

The pendulum swings both ways.

Hallelujah.