It would also be nice to see some of that money go towards securing and improving his operating system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_botnet

Well, yeah - that would be good too. Personally, I wish more people would use Unix and Linux based operating systems - unfortunately, loss of revenue because of such competition will be what finally makes Microsoft think harder about this.

Of course if their response to the rising popularity of Unix/Linux is as lame as their response to the rising popularity of FireFox (IE 7 - eewww), they are going to have a real problem. Something *really* needs to change at Microsoft before things are going to get any better; opening the source of Windows would be the right move, but I don't think they are anywhere near that, unfortunately, because that is their bread and butter.

WHAA....? Wow, I never in a million years thought you would say "opening the source of Windows would be the right move." Bill G.'s not so bad and really the money that would go towards windows wouldn't come directly from him anyway.

"I never in a million years thought you would say 'opening the source of Windows would be the right move.'"

Well, that just goes to show you how little you know me. :)

Now, I don't mean make it free - Microsoft would *never* be able to do that, since a huge chunk of their revenue comes from selling the OS. But there are a million reasons to open the source. Personally, I would love to see Unix/Linux gain a bigger share of the market - what would be fun to watch would be the variety of excuses given as to why that operating system was being attacked as much as Windows at that point.

I still maintain (as do others more intelligent than I) that one of the big reasons Unix/Linux machines (Macs included) are so seemingly secure is simply because there are few reasons to attack them (read: there would not be enough ROI in producing viruses/worms/etc. for those operating systems because there are so few (relative to the number of Windows installations). But, if that number goes up significantly, the tide will turn; it's only a matter of time.