This was my first thought based on the history and culture of the company. I'll be watching this development closely. The optimistic side of me hopes embracing Linux marks a real change in Microsoft, but we'll have to wait and see.

The move does seem rather troubling, considering the history of Microsoft. Linux seems like it's a little too big for "extinguish," and th GPLv2 should provide some defense against nefarious "extend"ing...

But then again, I wonder how many now-defunct open standards and projects thought the same thing.