Well imagine if MS did hold an auction and invited parties interested in promoting Linux. What would the reaction have been like? I can imagine lots of "MS scre

Well imagine if MS did hold an auction and invited parties interested in promoting Linux. What would the reaction have been like? I can imagine lots of "MS screws Linux via extortion 'auction' process" stories flying around on the internet on such a day. Or how about, "Proprietary software company stifles Free Software innovation using Patents". Regardless of their intent, there is no way MS will ever get any positive reaction from the majority of the "open source community" (I use that term lightly - I think everyone who reads this will know which, very vocal parties I mean though). It's hard to do business with people who are constantly demonizing you. Is it any surprise MS wont make much of an effort engaging with such parties? Patents + Linux = PR disaster for MS no matter what. The best they could ever do is minimize the damage.