Considering he's a multi-billionaire, and how few multi-billionaires actually do what he's doing, I'd say proving he's not a total monster is fairly impressive.
Actually, leaving a significant portion of your estate to charity is a common estate planning technique. There are many significantly wealthy people that do it all the time. He's just making a big deal out of it.
First, let me say that I'm a total advocate of people taking responsibility for their own lives. Be responsible for your own children!!!
That aside, I must say that this is an issue that really irritates me. Many kids won't stay awake through any of their schoolwork, and learn more from games and movies than they do their formal education. Would it be so difficult to portray some of these things accurately. Now, obviously, some of the gameplay can't be accurate. As is posted elsewhere, Hittites didn't battle Native Americans, etc... Could you at LEAST get the names, places and geography right?
In your example of Madden 2004, at least Randy Moss was on the Vikings squad and there was a somewhat realistic portrayal of the trade process. If the game came out with Randy Moss playing for the Jets, there would be riots in the street.
Game publishers and movie makers have the right to publish what they like, and I appreciate that. I just wish they would show a little responsibility. Don't take "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and make it a happy cartoon. Victor Hugo would be mortified. The entertainment industry regularly ruins MANY classic stories, both real and fictional (Snow White, Pocahontas, any Disney movie about the Arthurian legends, The Three Musketeers, Man in the Iron Mask, Count of Monte Christo, Pearl Harbor, etc, etc, etc....). Most people won't ever read these stories on their own, would it kill them to stick somewhat close to the story?
Did the Europeans do bad things to the Indians? Yes, both as individual settlers and as organized acts of imperialism.
Let's not forget that the Indians did do some nasty things to settlers. They may have been provoked, even justified, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Actually, at least one third party (the makers of TaxAct), offers e-file for free to everyone.
Ummm... No. I used TaxAct this year (and last). It's free to create your return, but you have to print it and mail it in. To E-File you have to use their "Deluxe Edition" for $9.95 (E-file for your Federal tax return is INCLUDED!) plus another $5.00 for the State return.
I did this because the last two years in a row I have had difficulty with my tax returns actually making it to the IRS/state revenue service. The $15 seemed more cost effective than printing the forms, adding postage, actually going to the post office and paying to have the letters sent certified so I can be sure they get there.
"intellectual property tax" legislation is under consideration that may make the copyright expire sooner if it isn't registered with taxing authorities.
Great. So Disney can just buy a new copyright next time Mickey Mouse is going to expire, 2023, rather than actually go to all the trouble to change the law. Soon you will have to be a multibillion dollar conglomerate to actually hold a copyright on anything.
But...it was no more terrible than 6 anonymous people dieing in an accident on the interstate. Its the same thing morally.
Actually, that's not true. I would say some poor schmoe dying on the interstate is MORE tragic than astronauts dying in space. The guy on the highway is probably just going from his crappy job to his tiny house with his bitchy wife (or her abusive husband - let's not be sexist) and bratty kids. The astronauts that die in space are actually doing something they probably have dreamed of doing since they were children. They all know the potential risks and signed on anyway.
Unfortunately, while we value human life, the reality of the situation is that everyone dies and any type of exploration is dangerous. Where would we be if every exploration expedition in the world was scrapped because of a loss of life. I think we should take every reasonable precaution, but scrapping a space program because a few astronauts lost their lives is just dumb.
Now, if those schools would get real and start school after 8:00 like reasonable people, we could get around this little problem and be much more flexable with the time.
The Schools where I live have this insane scheduled these days now anyway. Start different times on different days, have random days off, most parents in down drive their kids to school anyway because they are too paranoid to let them walk. What the heck difference does an hour more or less of daylight make these days for MOST people anyway.
I equate the grounding strap to be more of a lucky charm than utilitarian.
I used to work in electronic assembly for a company that was VERY serious about anti-stat - smocks, grounding straps, heel thingys, the whole bit. They did a lot of mil-spec work and other high end industrial. We all had to get certified. They told us in certification class that ESD doesn't generally knock a component out immediately. The studies showed that without ESD protection the statistical failure rate, over time, of the items that came off the line were higher. Since they wanted all of their products to work as long as possible the enforced the ESD policy STRICTLY, but you probably aren't going to see the effects on one machine.
Personally, I've been building computers since about 1990 and I'm not sure I used a strap more than once or twice. Never had a problem to my knowledge.
Go look at their pricing for 1 to 4 way servers. Come back and say whether you can really maintain your statement.
Ugh, you people and your semantics. Ok, maybe highly overpriced is not a completely accurate statement. The Sun v40z does seem to be fairly competitive in pricing, I recently bought some HP Proliant DL380 servers that are very similar for a similar price.
Here's the thing. When I think of Sun, I don't think of machines like this v40z, even though I know Sun builds them. They are OK, but we already have HP servers and better the devil you know...
OTOH, machines like the v490 are way cool. If I could possibly afford one of those I would be very tempted, but with a $30,995.00 price tag for the base model I don't forsee the day when it's a viable alternative. If they could get the price of those machines down where mere mortals could afford them, they might sell like hotcakes. Back during the boom many people (who probably didn't need that much machine) bought those up. Now that the market's leaner (plus the PC architecture is 64 bit and faster than ever) it's a little tought to sell a machine for $30k+.
Finally, I don't have any personal experience, but I have heard some talk that those UltraSPARC machines aren't all they are cracked up to be. Maybe they are wicked fast, and the people I've talked to are just giving the old "sour grapes" bit.
Personally, I think the Sun machines are probably amazing, and probably are not overpriced when you compare performance per dollar, but I don't know anyone that could (or would) afford one - making them overpriced as far as the market is concerned.
the next thing hippies like you are going to point out
Just for the record, I normally just shoot hippies, have them stuffed and hung on the wall.
My point is that Sun can't 'blame' Linux for killing their business. Capitalism is harsh, make poor decisions and you are SCREWED. Happens every day. The strong survive, the weak are eaten by the sharks. The world is changing, Sun's NOT changing with it - at least not quickly enough. Successful execs make the right choices and anticipate changes. Unsuccessful ones make the wrong choices and fail.
in reality open source has virtually destroyed them (Linux).
No, they have destroyed themselves. Sun was always highly overpriced and overrated. During the boom they got away with it - everyone HAD to have Sun machines. Since times have become leaner, they still have this expensive big business image that they can't shake. Their hardware is way cool, but still way to expensive for normal mortals to afford. Their market share has died, but it's not ONLY the adoption of open source products. They haven't changed enough to access the low end markets while IBM and HP have sewn up the high end markets (while embracing open source software).
It's unfortunate, I have always liked the idea of Sun and their products, but the downward spiral is just depressing. This article is typical coporate floundering - blame everyone but ourselves for our problems.
Sure it does. He could decide to spend it all on a private shape ship, or use it to build nuclear weapons and give them to terrorists.
Ummm... hard to build space ships after you are dead, and again, not giving nukes to terrorists is hardly benevolant. All that proves is he isn't a total monster, or at least doesn't want his children blown up.
On a side note, apparently, the passport was created during World War I as a temporary document intended to prevent spies from crossing european borders.
Nice story. Amazing how many people don't see all of these infrigments on our freedoms sneaking up on them. Everyone 50 years old and younger doesn't remember a time without a passport. Now they are common. As long as the government sneaks stuff up on us gradually it will get through.
Why is it the responsibility of the CANADIAN immigration officer to tell you what the rules are in the USA?
Hmmm... doesn't seem like it was his responsibility, but it's still a bit of a cold thing to do. Obviously he knew that there would be a problem, but stamped the passport anyway. Just mean - thought Canadians were nicer.
Now wait a minute, how does that work? Thought these things only worked at a very short range. Are they going to be imbedded all the way around the tire so when I run across some kind of sensor it works? Most tires are more than just a few inches across (usually at least 20 inches or so). If the RFID can only be picked up in one spot it won't be very effective, plus the sheer amount of work to aggregate all that data would be monumental.
Not sure I believe it, but I can still get behind the "Keep RFID tags out of cars, passports, items in stores, etc." idea - just in case.
How reliable do you think it is for someone at the border to have to check each and every ID...
I can't believe that checking passports is much better. After thousands a day get through shouldn't be that hard to slip a counterfit one through. Besides that, the 4,000 mile border (longest international border in the world) is probably not going to be that easy to patrol. Any terrorist can take a nice hike and be in Montana in a few hours. Looks to me like this is another excuse by the US government to make our lives more difficult, make a few bucks on issuing a bunch of passports, and push us to a more totalitarian state.
I think Bill's promise to give away 90+% of his net worth is more noble than anything any slashdotter will ever accomplish.
I would have to look into it more, but generally this is just to keep the government from getting it. Good Old Uncle Sam would take a HUGE chunk of his estate if he doesn't leave it to charity. I'm sure his wife and children already have money/stock in their own names and won't be hurting for cash. What else is he going to do with it, may as well give it away. Doesn't really make him benevolent does it...
Free wifi sounds nice, but like any luxury it should be left to the private sector, who will probably do a better job over the long term -- at a guaranteed cost of zero to taxpayers.
Not sure where you are from, but I'm sure part of the motivation here is the makeup of the the Colorado geography. Most people in Colorado live in the "Front Range" area spanning from Colorado Springs in the south to Ft. Collins in the north. The rest of the state is relatively sparsely populated, some of the smaller towns are 50-100 miles from a major metropolitan area. I live in Greeley, east of the Ft. Collins area and a city of about 85,000 and DSL only recently came to town. Most smaller communities in Colorado have limited broadband access due to their distance from the more densely populated areas. The private sector will not get to many of these communities for years - if at all. There just isn't enough money there. Creating a wireless network through the local government may be the only way many of these rural/farming communites ever get broadband access.
More likely would probably kill some of the other local wireless providers. Can't see cable and DSL going up because of it. At least where I live, Comcast has spent a significant amount of money creating it's network and upgrade it's image. It's not going to lose market share to local wireless without a fight. I'm not suggesting it would drop to anywhere near the $16 range, but I'm paying almost $60/month now. I think the cable company has a lot of room to adjust their pricing.
its that they started doing it after the showtime.
Last movie I went to in the theatre, Sky Captain, was terrible. The commercials weren't even special ones for the movie, they were old TV commercials from 6-12 months prior to this showing. Plus many people in the theatre talked during the feature. I was HIGHLY irritated, and haven't been back. What kills me is the movie industry can't figure out why movie attendance is down.
My brother-in-law has a 84" projector home theatre with THX in the basement. With netflix we just watch them there, better than the movie theatre anyway.
RE: 1 - Microsoft tech support has a mantra - "We don't support third-party add-ons."
My point exactly, it would be their third party add-on, not the developers. The base program is what changed, what the user upgraded, and now MS's slick little add-on doesn't work. Chaos ensues. I'm not saying Microsoft would like it, or support it, but it would be a disaster and ruin their credibility on that product - esp. if you could do it often enough.
RE: 2 - While you could concievably do so, what's stopping MS from grabbing your source and selling it? Most office IT admins would prefer you downloaded the microsoft update for the microsoft application, and not the JoeProgrammer add-on pack.
Don't release the source for the new version. Perfectly within your rights as a copyright holder, just release the binaries. Many companies are doing that right now, I've particularly seen it in DVD writers. Many OSS products that work extremely well to write CDs require the purchase of a commercial version to write DVDs. If you don't release the source and require a purchase of the binaries Microsoft can't very well package them and redistribute them without violating copyright laws and causing a big mess.
I think if this was a viable money-making approach MS would have tried it already. They have little shame and will try about anything to make a buck. Obviously that's not a good enough argument to dispute the validity of the concept, but it is interesting nonetheless.
companies like MS with a huge support infrastructure already in place, could EASILY compete against small-medium businesses that -rely- on support to pay their developers. And since development doesn't cost MS any more money, because the OSS businesses are open-sourcing all their upgrades... who wins? MS. The developers can't win, because the money isn't in development, but in support.
Actually, I believe this is what IBM and HP are already doing. I think somebody at IBM woke up one morning and said "Hmmm.... why should we keep working on AIX when there is this perfectly good OS called Linux out there that we can sell?". They reduced their work on AIX, ported applications over to Linux, re-tasked some of their AIX developers to Linux or cross-platform work and are selling servers with Linux on them. Their product is (or will eventually be) better and development costs are lower. Instead of playing catch-up all the time, they can incorporate other people's work into their product and actually improve their overall product offering. At the same time they are contributing back to the community (probably hoping that someone else will contribute something valuable) and look like heros.
And when companies who specialize in support begin to see that the -product- comes free, very very few developers will reap rewards.
This I can agree with. There definitely is risk in releasing anything Open Source. If a company can generate adequate revenue supporting a product they can easily steal profits from the original developers. That's a risk a developer runs and a risk of doing business. I'm not really sure if selling support is that viable of a business model anyway. I prefer the model of trolltech or MySQL who sell commercial licenses for commercial use.
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And has been since the dawn of time.
Considering he's a multi-billionaire, and how few multi-billionaires actually do what he's doing, I'd say proving he's not a total monster is fairly impressive.
Actually, leaving a significant portion of your estate to charity is a common estate planning technique. There are many significantly wealthy people that do it all the time. He's just making a big deal out of it.
First, let me say that I'm a total advocate of people taking responsibility for their own lives. Be responsible for your own children!!!
That aside, I must say that this is an issue that really irritates me. Many kids won't stay awake through any of their schoolwork, and learn more from games and movies than they do their formal education. Would it be so difficult to portray some of these things accurately. Now, obviously, some of the gameplay can't be accurate. As is posted elsewhere, Hittites didn't battle Native Americans, etc... Could you at LEAST get the names, places and geography right?
In your example of Madden 2004, at least Randy Moss was on the Vikings squad and there was a somewhat realistic portrayal of the trade process. If the game came out with Randy Moss playing for the Jets, there would be riots in the street.
Game publishers and movie makers have the right to publish what they like, and I appreciate that. I just wish they would show a little responsibility. Don't take "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and make it a happy cartoon. Victor Hugo would be mortified. The entertainment industry regularly ruins MANY classic stories, both real and fictional (Snow White, Pocahontas, any Disney movie about the Arthurian legends, The Three Musketeers, Man in the Iron Mask, Count of Monte Christo, Pearl Harbor, etc, etc, etc....). Most people won't ever read these stories on their own, would it kill them to stick somewhat close to the story?
Did the Europeans do bad things to the Indians? Yes, both as individual settlers and as organized acts of imperialism.
Let's not forget that the Indians did do some nasty things to settlers. They may have been provoked, even justified, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Actually, at least one third party (the makers of TaxAct), offers e-file for free to everyone.
Ummm... No. I used TaxAct this year (and last). It's free to create your return, but you have to print it and mail it in. To E-File you have to use their "Deluxe Edition" for $9.95 (E-file for your Federal tax return is INCLUDED!) plus another $5.00 for the State return.
I did this because the last two years in a row I have had difficulty with my tax returns actually making it to the IRS/state revenue service. The $15 seemed more cost effective than printing the forms, adding postage, actually going to the post office and paying to have the letters sent certified so I can be sure they get there.
"intellectual property tax" legislation is under consideration that may make the copyright expire sooner if it isn't registered with taxing authorities.
Great. So Disney can just buy a new copyright next time Mickey Mouse is going to expire, 2023, rather than actually go to all the trouble to change the law. Soon you will have to be a multibillion dollar conglomerate to actually hold a copyright on anything.
growth match Moore's law because industry decided to follow the law?
Sounds like Heisenberg. Did Moore change the outcome due to his observations? Very interesting...
But...it was no more terrible than 6 anonymous people dieing in an accident on the interstate. Its the same thing morally.
Actually, that's not true. I would say some poor schmoe dying on the interstate is MORE tragic than astronauts dying in space. The guy on the highway is probably just going from his crappy job to his tiny house with his bitchy wife (or her abusive husband - let's not be sexist) and bratty kids. The astronauts that die in space are actually doing something they probably have dreamed of doing since they were children. They all know the potential risks and signed on anyway.
Unfortunately, while we value human life, the reality of the situation is that everyone dies and any type of exploration is dangerous. Where would we be if every exploration expedition in the world was scrapped because of a loss of life. I think we should take every reasonable precaution, but scrapping a space program because a few astronauts lost their lives is just dumb.
Now, if those schools would get real and start school after 8:00 like reasonable people, we could get around this little problem and be much more flexable with the time.
The Schools where I live have this insane scheduled these days now anyway. Start different times on different days, have random days off, most parents in down drive their kids to school anyway because they are too paranoid to let them walk. What the heck difference does an hour more or less of daylight make these days for MOST people anyway.
I equate the grounding strap to be more of a lucky charm than utilitarian.
I used to work in electronic assembly for a company that was VERY serious about anti-stat - smocks, grounding straps, heel thingys, the whole bit. They did a lot of mil-spec work and other high end industrial. We all had to get certified. They told us in certification class that ESD doesn't generally knock a component out immediately. The studies showed that without ESD protection the statistical failure rate, over time, of the items that came off the line were higher. Since they wanted all of their products to work as long as possible the enforced the ESD policy STRICTLY, but you probably aren't going to see the effects on one machine.
Personally, I've been building computers since about 1990 and I'm not sure I used a strap more than once or twice. Never had a problem to my knowledge.
can't do the work because of all the administrative and teaching tasks...
Let's not forget all of the attention those sexy undergrads need...
Go look at their pricing for 1 to 4 way servers. Come back and say whether you can really maintain your statement.
Ugh, you people and your semantics. Ok, maybe highly overpriced is not a completely accurate statement. The Sun v40z does seem to be fairly competitive in pricing, I recently bought some HP Proliant DL380 servers that are very similar for a similar price.
Here's the thing. When I think of Sun, I don't think of machines like this v40z, even though I know Sun builds them. They are OK, but we already have HP servers and better the devil you know...
OTOH, machines like the v490 are way cool. If I could possibly afford one of those I would be very tempted, but with a $30,995.00 price tag for the base model I don't forsee the day when it's a viable alternative. If they could get the price of those machines down where mere mortals could afford them, they might sell like hotcakes. Back during the boom many people (who probably didn't need that much machine) bought those up. Now that the market's leaner (plus the PC architecture is 64 bit and faster than ever) it's a little tought to sell a machine for $30k+.
Finally, I don't have any personal experience, but I have heard some talk that those UltraSPARC machines aren't all they are cracked up to be. Maybe they are wicked fast, and the people I've talked to are just giving the old "sour grapes" bit.
Personally, I think the Sun machines are probably amazing, and probably are not overpriced when you compare performance per dollar, but I don't know anyone that could (or would) afford one - making them overpriced as far as the market is concerned.
the next thing hippies like you are going to point out
Just for the record, I normally just shoot hippies, have them stuffed and hung on the wall.
My point is that Sun can't 'blame' Linux for killing their business. Capitalism is harsh, make poor decisions and you are SCREWED. Happens every day. The strong survive, the weak are eaten by the sharks. The world is changing, Sun's NOT changing with it - at least not quickly enough. Successful execs make the right choices and anticipate changes. Unsuccessful ones make the wrong choices and fail.
in reality open source has virtually destroyed them (Linux).
No, they have destroyed themselves. Sun was always highly overpriced and overrated. During the boom they got away with it - everyone HAD to have Sun machines. Since times have become leaner, they still have this expensive big business image that they can't shake. Their hardware is way cool, but still way to expensive for normal mortals to afford. Their market share has died, but it's not ONLY the adoption of open source products. They haven't changed enough to access the low end markets while IBM and HP have sewn up the high end markets (while embracing open source software).
It's unfortunate, I have always liked the idea of Sun and their products, but the downward spiral is just depressing. This article is typical coporate floundering - blame everyone but ourselves for our problems.
Sure it does. He could decide to spend it all on a private shape ship, or use it to build nuclear weapons and give them to terrorists.
Ummm... hard to build space ships after you are dead, and again, not giving nukes to terrorists is hardly benevolant. All that proves is he isn't a total monster, or at least doesn't want his children blown up.
On a side note, apparently, the passport was created during World War I as a temporary document intended to prevent spies from crossing european borders.
Nice story. Amazing how many people don't see all of these infrigments on our freedoms sneaking up on them. Everyone 50 years old and younger doesn't remember a time without a passport. Now they are common. As long as the government sneaks stuff up on us gradually it will get through.
Why is it the responsibility of the CANADIAN immigration officer to tell you what the rules are in the USA?
Hmmm... doesn't seem like it was his responsibility, but it's still a bit of a cold thing to do. Obviously he knew that there would be a problem, but stamped the passport anyway. Just mean - thought Canadians were nicer.
cars will have them imbedded in tires
Now wait a minute, how does that work? Thought these things only worked at a very short range. Are they going to be imbedded all the way around the tire so when I run across some kind of sensor it works? Most tires are more than just a few inches across (usually at least 20 inches or so). If the RFID can only be picked up in one spot it won't be very effective, plus the sheer amount of work to aggregate all that data would be monumental.
Not sure I believe it, but I can still get behind the "Keep RFID tags out of cars, passports, items in stores, etc." idea - just in case.
How reliable do you think it is for someone at the border to have to check each and every ID...
I can't believe that checking passports is much better. After thousands a day get through shouldn't be that hard to slip a counterfit one through. Besides that, the 4,000 mile border (longest international border in the world) is probably not going to be that easy to patrol. Any terrorist can take a nice hike and be in Montana in a few hours. Looks to me like this is another excuse by the US government to make our lives more difficult, make a few bucks on issuing a bunch of passports, and push us to a more totalitarian state.
I think Bill's promise to give away 90+% of his net worth is more noble than anything any slashdotter will ever accomplish.
I would have to look into it more, but generally this is just to keep the government from getting it. Good Old Uncle Sam would take a HUGE chunk of his estate if he doesn't leave it to charity. I'm sure his wife and children already have money/stock in their own names and won't be hurting for cash. What else is he going to do with it, may as well give it away. Doesn't really make him benevolent does it...
Free wifi sounds nice, but like any luxury it should be left to the private sector, who will probably do a better job over the long term -- at a guaranteed cost of zero to taxpayers.
Not sure where you are from, but I'm sure part of the motivation here is the makeup of the the Colorado geography. Most people in Colorado live in the "Front Range" area spanning from Colorado Springs in the south to Ft. Collins in the north. The rest of the state is relatively sparsely populated, some of the smaller towns are 50-100 miles from a major metropolitan area. I live in Greeley, east of the Ft. Collins area and a city of about 85,000 and DSL only recently came to town. Most smaller communities in Colorado have limited broadband access due to their distance from the more densely populated areas. The private sector will not get to many of these communities for years - if at all. There just isn't enough money there. Creating a wireless network through the local government may be the only way many of these rural/farming communites ever get broadband access.
More likely would probably kill some of the other local wireless providers. Can't see cable and DSL going up because of it. At least where I live, Comcast has spent a significant amount of money creating it's network and upgrade it's image. It's not going to lose market share to local wireless without a fight. I'm not suggesting it would drop to anywhere near the $16 range, but I'm paying almost $60/month now. I think the cable company has a lot of room to adjust their pricing.
Heck yeah (although I wasn't specifically against the stadium). If nothing else this should drive down the costs of cable and DSL.
its that they started doing it after the showtime.
Last movie I went to in the theatre, Sky Captain, was terrible. The commercials weren't even special ones for the movie, they were old TV commercials from 6-12 months prior to this showing. Plus many people in the theatre talked during the feature. I was HIGHLY irritated, and haven't been back. What kills me is the movie industry can't figure out why movie attendance is down.
My brother-in-law has a 84" projector home theatre with THX in the basement. With netflix we just watch them there, better than the movie theatre anyway.
RE: 1 - Microsoft tech support has a mantra - "We don't support third-party add-ons."
My point exactly, it would be their third party add-on, not the developers. The base program is what changed, what the user upgraded, and now MS's slick little add-on doesn't work. Chaos ensues. I'm not saying Microsoft would like it, or support it, but it would be a disaster and ruin their credibility on that product - esp. if you could do it often enough.
RE: 2 - While you could concievably do so, what's stopping MS from grabbing your source and selling it? Most office IT admins would prefer you downloaded the microsoft update for the microsoft application, and not the JoeProgrammer add-on pack.
Don't release the source for the new version. Perfectly within your rights as a copyright holder, just release the binaries. Many companies are doing that right now, I've particularly seen it in DVD writers. Many OSS products that work extremely well to write CDs require the purchase of a commercial version to write DVDs. If you don't release the source and require a purchase of the binaries Microsoft can't very well package them and redistribute them without violating copyright laws and causing a big mess.
I think if this was a viable money-making approach MS would have tried it already. They have little shame and will try about anything to make a buck. Obviously that's not a good enough argument to dispute the validity of the concept, but it is interesting nonetheless.
companies like MS with a huge support infrastructure already in place, could EASILY compete against small-medium businesses that -rely- on support to pay their developers. And since development doesn't cost MS any more money, because the OSS businesses are open-sourcing all their upgrades... who wins? MS. The developers can't win, because the money isn't in development, but in support.
Actually, I believe this is what IBM and HP are already doing. I think somebody at IBM woke up one morning and said "Hmmm.... why should we keep working on AIX when there is this perfectly good OS called Linux out there that we can sell?". They reduced their work on AIX, ported applications over to Linux, re-tasked some of their AIX developers to Linux or cross-platform work and are selling servers with Linux on them. Their product is (or will eventually be) better and development costs are lower. Instead of playing catch-up all the time, they can incorporate other people's work into their product and actually improve their overall product offering. At the same time they are contributing back to the community (probably hoping that someone else will contribute something valuable) and look like heros.
And when companies who specialize in support begin to see that the -product- comes free, very very few developers will reap rewards.
This I can agree with. There definitely is risk in releasing anything Open Source. If a company can generate adequate revenue supporting a product they can easily steal profits from the original developers. That's a risk a developer runs and a risk of doing business. I'm not really sure if selling support is that viable of a business model anyway. I prefer the model of trolltech or MySQL who sell commercial licenses for commercial use.