Yet few have taken notice of what might be seen as ruthless or even treacherous action because of the positive reputation HP enjoys as a champion -- second only to IBM -- of open-source.

"There's a lot of self-delusion," Haff said in an interview. "People need to believe that there are 'good' companies and 'bad' companies. And they get shocked when a 'good' company does something that is in its ... self-interest."

By contrast, 'bad' companies like Microsoft can't catch a break, argues Haff. For instance, if in the late 1990s Microsoft, then in the midst of the Department of Justice's anti-trust case, had decided to release its Visual Studio 97 development tools for free, "What do you think the general reaction would have been? Applause for Microsoft's generosity? Or widespread condemnation for using its market power to make such a transparently anti-competitive attack on other makers of development tools?"

"Eclipse is a bulldozer just as much as much as Microsoft is," agrees another analyst, James Governor of Redmonk Inc., though he views the situation with more equanimity. "One person's predatory is another person's wonderful gift."

Malicious, really?