This is an interesting question coming from Stormy’s Corner, and I must agree with some of the points Stormy exposes.
I agree because the case of SUN’s OpenSolaris. Let’s review Stormy’s proposed consequences:
- Some Microsoft technology might be adopted into other open source technologies, actually improving their competitors. That has happened with DTrace on FreeBSD or ZFS being ported to Linux.
- The price of Windows would fall to zero. You can download OpenSolaris for free.
- Linux usage and adoption would continue at its current rate - it is the best operating system for many uses. OpenSolaris it’s a good OS too, but there isn’t a good reason to move to it (people is porting the cool stuff instead).
- Free software projects would have to get better at marketing. That’s true for SUN too, but we can’t ignore the good press that means a great company like SUN being an Open Source advocate using its own OS as example.
- None of the current open source developers would move to Microsoft projects. I think the OpenSolaris community has grown, althought I have no data about this point. I think the Linux community hasn’t moved to OpenSolaris, because SUN open sourced an almost dead operative system and the choosed license was not compatible with the most important license on the Open Source world: the GPL.
I don’t think Microsoft will open source its operative system, but in the hypothetical case… it would be very like OpenSolaris opening.
