Originally published on my personal blog on December 26th, 2007:
http://on-being-open.blogspot.com/2007/12/winning-by-not-competing-at-all.html
When I was very young, I used to fight with my younger brother. Well, from my point of view, he used to fight with me. I probably egged him on in some way that I don't remember now. I do remember being really frustrated because he would not leave me alone!
The point is that at some point he would get so riled up that he would dive bomb me, we wrestle to the ground and I'd proceed to pin him down till he gave up. I was two years older, and even as adults I was always taller and weighed more. of course he became a Marine, but fortunately we didn't fight anymore by then 
One day, after being made to give in, he went to my mother and complained about the fact that I had been in a fight with him, and mom told him that if he didn't want to fight, he didn't have to. He could just walk away. After he said that he couldn't and that she just didn't understand, and he left the room, she also told me the same thing. That I was older and stronger and that while he was the one picking the fights, I did not have to fight back.
I then proceeded to drive my brother nuts, because I realized she was right. I did not care about the things he cared about, and I did not want to fight. I always felt a little sick about the fights. Even though I won, I did not enjoy it. Part of it was knowing that they were not fair of course, and kids have a built in fairness meter. But I did not enjoy the violence of them. I know some folks get into that kind of thing, but it is "not my bag, baby". My daughter has been watching Austin Powers again....
How I drove my brother nuts was that I did exactly what my mom said. I quit competing. I started working on my inner geek, while he was off trying to figure out why I didn't engage anymore.
This is why Linux makes MS nuts.
Linux / Open Source et al does not compete with MS. They don't care about the issues MS cares about. Sure there are certain corners of the Linux world... even entire distros that try to compete with MS, but at the end of the day Linux/OpenSource (L/OS) is about whatever they are interested in.
Where MS is in part about things like Digital Rights Management and piracy of their code and the like, L/OS could collectively not care less. The very beginning of Linux is a microcosm of the whole thing: Linus Torvalds needed an OS for something at school, and so he wrote one.
People that take their own precious time and talent and create open source are also a breed apart. For many, it is about the code, and the act of creation, and the filling of a need, not about being contract programmers writing code they could care less about.
Linux and Open Source end up getting better and better, and doing more and more because they are not competing with anyone. Only themselves.
I watch few competitive sports. Really, I do not understand why I should care if the green team or the blue team put the ball/widget/thingie in a special place more often than the other team did.
The sports I do watch are things like snow skiing at the Winter Olympics. I ski... I used to anyway, and all skiing for me was about getting a little better at it every time I went. I knew I would never be great (I started at age 29...) but I always felt great after a day on the mountain where I had learned a new thing. I watch the Olympics in admiration of these people that are just so good at this. I don't really care who wins. I just like to watch.
Linux and Open Source will always be better because at the end of the day, it is not trying to be anything other than the best it can be.
Just like Mom said.
