As users of computers, it is in our interest to see standards released into the public domain. The open systems world, unless it is run down and smashed by the Microsoft juggernaut, has shown that effective competition can take place in a world of public standards such as Unix and X-11. Things have long since passed the point at which we could vote with our pocketbooks, by buying the competition's products, without putting ourselves outside the desktop mainstream entirely. We should be able to stay in the mainstream, while supporting more than one vendor. In the 1980's, an idea became prevalent that there should be no ethics in business, only laws.
Business is war.
This concept, of business as war, is actually very wrong-headed, and a relatively modern invention. Though enlightened self-interest would seem to dictate that business, like any other private activity, should be conducted so as to perpetuate the resources it exploits, the exact opposite is usually true. In most cost benefit analyses, the quality of life of the people affected by our actions, let alone the interests of people not yet born, is assigned no economic value. Software development can be a very ethical business. My company, which is very profitable, promotes creativity, facilitates the personal development of its employees and others, does no harm to the environment, and plays a modest role in promoting societal change by assisting at the birth of technological innovations such as distributed computing and the Internet.