sounds like any other piece of software except that with it being open, someone can fork it. Software dies sometimes. That's kind of life. But it is better for them to go this new track than to push out closed items that people legitimately stake their livelihoods on and then kill it off when something else comes along.

When Windows Phone 7 was the new thing, I went to one of the Microsoft dev camps for it. I vividly remember someone in the audience, standing in the walkway berating the guy on stage talking about Windows Phone 7 development because he had been focused on some Microsoft technology (Silverlight? WPF? I can't remember) and they had basically relegated it to the past by switching over to this new framework. At the time, I was kind of just mind blown, but in retrospect I can see his disappointment. If it were open source, either another entity could champion it or it would still go in the heap of bygone frameworks, but at least then it stood a chance.

And I'm fine with Microsoft playing around with something, open sourcing it, and then they decide there is something else out there they want to work with. Mostly in cases like this where it isn't a "product" they're attempting to market. Seems to be an okay process and perhaps someone can look at what they left in their wake to gain some kind of insight from it.