Exactly. Case in point: Google. Imagine if they started pulling stunts like this - the goodwill they depend on would evaporate overnight, the whole "I don't mind Google owning all my data because they aren't evil" balance would become paranoia about everything they touch, and they would lose billions. I believe that Microsoft's myopic focus on short-term profit at the expense of doing the right thing is one of the major causes of it's recent decline towards obscurity.

In today's world of abundant choice, companies have to provide good products AND provide them ethically.

Back on topic, look at what Astrolabe have done - taken something they probably couldn't make much money from anyway, and got the unix-derived world very pissed off with them. Their employees will feel down and it'll be harder to hire, and they'll have to endure snide remarks for years. I know I'd be selling their shares today, if I had any - I don't like investing in jerks.

Instead, they could have come out and said "We're pleased to donate our IP towards this amazingly useful service", and got a pat on the back from the world. And I'm guessing most of their shareholders would have been happy their investment was making the world a better place.

Very well said. And it is important that we help making this a PR disaster for the company, even if we have to be cautious - being it a quite obscure entity, even bad publicity could be useful to them...