[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

And to answer the question who benefits (economically)?

My naive take is that what you have is like the confederation in Star Wars (I’m not much of a Star Wars fan so forgive any mistakes there) teaming up against the evil empire i.e. MS.

I think the IBM’s, Novells, etc. etc. benefit indirectly if MS can be defanged. These companies may also get to sell goods and services that they profit from but my take has always been that this is first and foremost and anti-MS effort and linux just happened to be a convenient vehicle from which to wage the campaign.

My $.02 obviously.

[Still Thinking]

I’ve thought the same. It’s probably good for them to an extent, that extent limited by the license, but anything that prevents further extension/consolidation of MS hegemony and keeps MS otherwise occupied leaves them more room to sell their other stuff.

[sionnsar]

I think some of the other responders have this right.

I work in a similar collaborative effort, though it's the production of industry standards instead of software. The people I work most closely with are representatives from my employer's competitors.