Bill Gates was 9th most-read story at the open source blog

It was a short piece, from July, noting that the Gates Foundation had made $287 million in AIDS research grants conditional on the researchers sharing their results, which is at the heart of the open source ethos.

The story said a lot to me about Gates and a lot about open source as well. In both cases, what it said was good.

It said that Bill Gates has changed his life, entering a new, more mature, more gracious and more admirable stage. His grandchildren will not end up like Paris Hilton (left), while hundreds of millions of other children may get a chance to grow up.

The story also said a lot about how far science has moved from the open source ethos that made it work. It showed how sharing of results among colleagues has declined in this proprietary age, that we are all paying a price for that, and that Bill Gates, the "world's richest man", realizes this, that he is using his power to do something about it.

In terms of the world's history, this may have been the most important story of the year. In terms of the topics I usually write about here, enterprise software and software licensing, not so much.

But it's one that gave me great pleasure to read, and it seems if gave you pleasure as well.

Next up: The eighth most-read story -- Scoble after Microsoft
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