Drew points out (in a response to an article posted by Scoble a few days ago), why non-windows web development beats windows development hands down.
I posted a reply in the comments on my experiences:
Having originally started out with application development using VB (all the way back to VB1 for DOS!), I moved into web application development.
ASP would have been a natural progression you would think, but I opted for PHP under Apache.
I’ve since had to return to the Microsoft development platform for some work projects (previously using Microsoft CMS and the next is in plain ‘ol ASP.NET) and here the BIG difference I’ve found:
It’s the community. Getting anyone in the Microsoft world to talk about solutions and code they’ve written is WAY harder than the open source guys. IMHE (In My Humble Experiance), MS developers tend to keep their cards close to their chest in case they give up some perceived market share. “If we tell this guy how we did this, then he will get the work not us”.
In the open source world the usual reply is “Lets help this guy, he’s doing similar stuff to us and might come up with something new/neat that we can use.”
Now, I’m not saying ALL Microsoft developers think like this (look at the success and general quality of submissions on planetsourcecode.com for instance).
Another problem is the cost of training. I’m finding it very hard to come up with quality learning resources on the web for ASP/MCSM. Sure the API is well documented, but where are the quick start tutorials, well written example sites and open source application frameworks for ASP?
Richard@Home 
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