Having hands-on experience means knowing the answer to a problem right away or knowing where to get the answer quickly. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. A creative solution will be elegant and will still be effective as technology changes. While I am able to work with closed systems such as Windows, I try to build my solutions on top of open technology.
Open standards are they key to interacting with similar systems.
I also use Open Source software as the foundation for all of my work, to read more about why Free Software and Open Source software is better, go to the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative .