[sgjohnson]

It’s an enormous liability concern for them.

Even if some activist executive would allow it, Microsoft’s lawyers would absolutely not.

And the shareholders also wouldn’t.

Don’t forget that the purpose of a business is to create shareholder value (as defined by the shareholders themselves), and I highly doubt that the majority of Microsoft’s shareholders would see any value in this. Just liability.

Conclusion - not worth it.

> Are they gonna terminate Prof Green's account too?

Probably not.

> Are they gonna hunt down every copy of the source code on Github?

Probably.

[salawat]

Technically, a corporation exists to distribute risk to facilitate a venture that may produce a return, not necessarily fiscal, but nevertheless valuable to the group undertaking it.

It's a perversion of the concept to jump to must produce a positive financial return. Sometimes you just need an organization to coordinate something that eases a societal ill.

That business schools have forgotten this, and that we don't remind people of this consistently is a tragedy. It cuts off entire avenues of collective organization to get things done. Some times "getting it done at minimum outlay" is enough.

[sgjohnson]

> It's a perversion of the concept to jump to must produce a positive financial return.

At no point I suggested that. I said "shareholder value, as defined by the shareholders themselves".

"value" doesn't imply fiscal.