It would make my week to see Dell aggressively promoting new products based on RH software.

I can't see Microsoft allowing that to happen without a fight.

I will go out on a limb here and say that the digital assistant is an idea that is yet to be fully realized.

Clippy, or something like it will be a regular feature of computers years from now. With improved AI, processing power, speech recognition, always on Internet connections and better search engines a virtual assistant will be able to really do something for users other than annoy them.

People who aren't nerds/geeks//. readers would likely find comfort in having a "little man" in the computer that can talk to them and understand what tasks they would like it to perform. Heck, if its good enough even /. readers might want one on their desktops, too.

There are places like getafreelancer.com and similar sites that have developers for hire who will code to your standards. You yourself can choose to release the code under whatever license you choose.

You might also check out Sourceforge and try to find developers there on the forums.