(Arstechnica) Is Bill Gates learning from the mod community?

[VaKo]

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/6/22/4415

You know, having read a few recent interviews with Bill Gates, i kinda get the feeling he's yearning for the days where he was doing the geek work, not worrying about profit margins and drm.

[Snowy©]

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2...csStudioPR.mspx

As close to opensource while still retaining profits (to appease the EU courts) as he can lol

EDIT: it just makes good business sence to nick something that is illegal and make profit out of it, lets face it the ideas free and no one is going to claim it.

Example (and this one is funny)

Every new console that come out (or handheld blah blah blah) see's a direct spike in sales once a method to mod it comes along - manufacturers deny it but it's a direct correlation. Now then the manufacturers push there dev kits based on the potential number of customers out there - based on the number of consoles sold - so they win from the mod, they then adjust something to make the mod fail or loose some sort of functionality and presto they have a large consumer base that helps them get more games made for their console.

Take Xbox360 for example MS will soon write a verysimple check via the dash or Live server that will eradicate those xboxes from ever playing on Live again... but they don't want that just yet... nonono they want to sell tonnes of units to totally bury sony (Sony are about to be Buried by Blu-Ray anyway lol setback of Sony's own Blu-Ray player again - because it's poo) so MS will wait a few months and let it sell consoles and then send out a killing/feature removing update.