Being forced into a preconceived role sucks (unless you like the role). There's a fine line between "I am willing to do that" where "that" is almost anything, and realizing that if you are willing to, say, do programming in PHP or for Windows, people may capitalize on that and pigeonhole you into that sort of work, even if you don't prefer it.
I personally prefer to learn/master FLOSS tools and other open solutions, as I don't like being locked to one vendor for tools. More importantly, I only have so many hours in my life and cells in my brain. I can only learn so many things, so a simple first filter when choosing things to learn is to preclude anything that doesn't have a FLOSS implementation. I don't want to waste time or effort on things that may become easily irrelevant, or worse, are at the whim of someone else (whose goals may not always be pragmatic, but rather "market oriented"). While these problems are possible with FLOSS, it is highly more likely to happen with a proprietary solution. It's also a question of "do I learn all the quirky, unnecessary irregularities of Brand X tool, or do I search for tools that delve into more universal, deeper questions?".
This also, unfortunately, applies to who you associate with. Should you waste your time with people who are into sports, participate in fantasy football, etc, if you don't care about sports? If you want to become good at something, hang around those that are and learn from them. If you are the smartest person in the room, you need to find another room where all the people in it are smarter than you.
I personally prefer to learn/master FLOSS tools and other open solutions, as I don't like being locked to one vendor for tools. More importantly, I only have so many hours in my life and cells in my brain. I can only learn so many things, so a simple first filter when choosing things to learn is to preclude anything that doesn't have a FLOSS implementation. I don't want to waste time or effort on things that may become easily irrelevant, or worse, are at the whim of someone else (whose goals may not always be pragmatic, but rather "market oriented"). While these problems are possible with FLOSS, it is highly more likely to happen with a proprietary solution. It's also a question of "do I learn all the quirky, unnecessary irregularities of Brand X tool, or do I search for tools that delve into more universal, deeper questions?".
This also, unfortunately, applies to who you associate with. Should you waste your time with people who are into sports, participate in fantasy football, etc, if you don't care about sports? If you want to become good at something, hang around those that are and learn from them. If you are the smartest person in the room, you need to find another room where all the people in it are smarter than you.