If Microsoft were doing this for altruistic reasons, it would be a first.
Sorry for staying on Microsoft side on this sentence, but "this story recalled me of when Microsoft gave away the source code of an "underdog" game of theirs, Allegiance (still developed and played by a small but loyal community at freeallegiance.org).
Well, yes, the dev needed a full four years to compile a working copy of the source (the original, buggy copy of it is still available here) and the EULA wasn't that great. But yet again I see no way Microsoft can make any profit out of that, at least now. It has no fluffy graphics, it has too keys for a port to XBox, it has a very steep learning curve (and still I think it's a great game).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, yes, the dev needed a full four years to compile a working copy of the source (the original, buggy copy of it is still available here) and the EULA wasn't that great. But yet again I see no way Microsoft can make any profit out of that, at least now. It has no fluffy graphics, it has too keys for a port to XBox, it has a very steep learning curve (and still I think it's a great game).
Why bother? Bush is already doing great terror