On the other hand, it would be all over the tech news, but most people wouldn’t understand and would think it meant something bad. They would think it’s less secure and then would understand computers even less.

Now, if Windows went FOSS altogether, then Microsoft would lose so much money they would become as small as K-Mart (wth is that anymore?). On the other hand, Windows would be used so widely that almost everyone would have it and improve it, it would become Linux that took over the world. Microsoft could then put a “tax” on all software for Windows that cost anything and make money from that.

Nah, they’re too evil. All they care about is money. It would be a cool business decision though…

Most of your writeup I enjoyed Sridar, but you have to give credit where credit is due. They created 3 licences which closely emulated the MPL, GPL and BSD. It appears the BSD like one has disappeared from the webpage, but actually read these two licences. It would be far more appropriate if they used existing well understood and known licences like GPL, LGLP, BSD, etc, however they do have software released under these two MS licences that are actually reflective of what we look for in an Open Source licence. “Shared Source” is indeed a big joke, but you missed the other stuff happening :) http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/licenses.mspx

(btw, your anti-spam plugin breaks wp-openid.)