Christopher Baus has written a humorous and partially relevant letter to Bill Gates concerning the porting of Windows Media Player to Linux. He thinks it should be done so that Microsoft can win the media wars, but in doing so I think they start to lose the OS war.
Apple can release WMP for Apple because they aren’t a direct threat (well with the Mac Mini that changes a bit), but Linux plays more of a role in the destruction of the Microsoft Empire. Porting any of its software over to Linux only gives people more reason to switch (yes, us geeks know that Video Lan Client rocks the house).
I’d be nice to see such an argument done from the Microsoft perspective.
Thanks for the link. I tried to be a bit over the top with this post, just for the fun of it. But I think there is something to be said there. If Microsoft wants to look kinder and gentler, then give us WMP on other platforms. They really have nothing to lose on the deal.