If microsoft has really had so much change of heart or they were into do-good-for-the-world then opening up the file formats for non-IP kindof data like msword etc would be the way to go. but, i think there is more to it.. by opening up the source-code under a shared source/non-GPLed licence can infact harm the opensource community as then they can claim almost anything which *seems* close enough to their work as a copyright voilation. I think (IMHO) open source developers should give this issue a serious thought before even looking into such code.
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If microsoft has really had so much change of heart or they were into do-good-for-the-world then opening up the file formats for non-IP kindof data like msword etc would be the way to go. .. by opening up the source-code under a shared source/non-GPLed licence can infact harm the opensource community as then they can claim almost anything which *seems* close enough to their work as a copyright voilation. I think (IMHO) open source developers should give this issue a serious thought before even looking into such code.
but, i think there is more to it