Even more OT - sorry

Microsoft has supported competitors before, this was cited by MS during the anti-trust trials as an example of their benevolence. Cynics would claim it as MS having enough investment capital to burn that they can easily afford to spend $100m on PR exercises.

Given the current MS attitudes, I think you're right - the anti open source faction has gained control, I don't expect their support for Activestate to continue.

I suspect that currently MS is quietly confident that the anti-trust suit will be quashed by the Bush admin. So we can expect lots more aggressive moves like this - makes sense, open source is now their biggest competitor.

Overall I'd say this will hurt Microsoft, more than it will hurt open source. It's harder to quash a community of individuals than it is a few shareholders and directors. Plus attacking open source will build up its credibility... at least they're not laughing at us any more.

"The future will be better tomorrow."