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...Which brings up my interesting point from years and years ago: wouldn't MS have been better off releasing an old OS such as Windows 95 to Open Source in order to have those sorts of consumer devices running on an MS-compatible platform, rather than completely losing that marketshare to Linux?

What possible benefit would there be for MS? Losing market share to a free version of Windows isn't any better than losing market share to free Linux.

One incredibly valuable part of Windows 95 -- regardless of its vintage -- is its ability to run 32-bit Windows applications. I have to tell you: the first thing that the open source guys would do is extract the "secret sauce" from Windows 95 that allows Windows apps to run -- and move whatever portion they can over to Linux -- to give Linux the same capability. They wouldn't promote the evolution of Windows 95. If you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself.

"What possible benefit would there be for MS? Losing market share to a free version of Windows isn't any better than losing market share to free Linux."

One benefit would be to gain marketshare. TiVo, for instance, would have easily gone with a free Open Source Windows 95 instead of a free Linux release.

Now TiVo units are not only in millions of homes connected to millions of TV's, but they are also being connected to millions of home networks.

However, instead of that new networked computer being MS Compatible, they are all Linux.

Instead of game developers writing MS compatible code for TiVo games (hey, it's a computer that's already connected to a remote and a TV), now they're writing for Linux.

MicroSoft is losing the Consumer Products marketshare for operating systems...all because ancient Windows 95 code wasn't licensed at minimal cost (but with important MS restrictions included in the license) to consumer products developers like TiVo.

This is in direct contrast to Bill Gates' stated dream of seeing MS dominate the convergence of the computer, TV, and telephone.

Instead, new consumer products are rolling out running on Linux. Gain enough marketshare on consumer products, and suddenly the TV becomes the new desktop instead of the computer.

Lots and lots of people watch TV and play games on TV and TiVo TV. That's an awful lot of potential desktop marketshare...and MS isn't in the hunt for any of it, even though they could have *owned* all of it now and in the future by giving away something that MS has locked up inside safes: ancient Windows 95 code.