I think the Golden Rule applies here - it's Microsoft's gold - they get to make the rules. ;-) And, as Mike Beane has pointed out, .NET is a standard that specifically requires use of the CLR.
>>But, here again, as long as we (users) make up the rules instead of giving MS the opportunity to TELL US the rules, this quandry will remain.<<
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.