I think that orphaned software be made public domain too. Any company that refuses to support the product they sold looses the rights to that work.
That's a great idea. Any software that has met its end of life cycle should be made open source and free to anyone who wants to use it. Why would microsoft care if someone installed and used Windows 200 illegally for example? They aren't losing anything, because Microsoft is no longer selling, or even supporting it. I suppose the only drawback for them would be that Windows 2000 is better than Vista and they would be afraid a lot of people would use it instead.