Is .NET bigger than Microsoft, or is Microsoft bigger than .NET? That's the real question being asked here. The philanthropic energies of the open source commu

Is .NET bigger than Microsoft, or is Microsoft bigger than .NET? That's the real question being asked here. The philanthropic energies of the open source community are often in direct conflict with command-and-control corporate structures and even the legal system itself. Pretending like the conflict doesn't exist is how these folks got into this mess. Microsoft has a chance here to generate a huge amount of goodwill not only in the .NET community but also the open source world by choosing to relinquish the "company behind the curtain" aspect apparent in the Bylaws. Articles and blog posts will be written about what happens here. The usual comments of "embrace, extend, extinguish" might themselves be extinguished by Microsoft choosing philanthropy. Without the philanthropic energies of projects and maintainers, what is the purpose of the Foundation anyway? If .NET as a brand is too important to risk tarnishing by people not on Microsoft's payroll, then abolish the Foundation altogether.