That is the hypotheseis of Russ Roberts writing in Business Week: "On the surface, Linus vs. Bill seems to be the ultimate David vs. Goliath contest. It appears to pit the man who cheerfully gives away his code against the guy who ruthlessly seeks every last penny for it. You'd expect Gates would squash Torvalds. Yet they have more in common than you might think. And the final score in their high-stakes rivalry could end up surprisingly close...While Torvalds is a threat to Gates, Gates seems to be little or no threat to Torvalds. To hear Torvalds talk about it, he's having fun as Linux' guardian. His challenge is merely that of being an effective shepherd to a vast flock of very creative, un-sheeplike sheep. Regardless of the marketplace's final judgment, Torvalds probably sleeps a lot more soundly than Gates."

NYTimes writes about HSX.com:

[There are a] million people who have traded on the Hollywood Stock Exchange, where players can register at no cost to predict box office receipts for films. For [them], it's a game, and it's fun.

But for Hollywood studios and entertainment executives, along with real traders and others, the game has become something to take quite seriously. Studios, along with academics, are interested in it as a way to predict which movies will succeed. Traders are working to turn the concept into an actual financial market, like those for futures in corn, oil and other commodities. It has also served as the model for a television show merging trading and music.

All this interest revolves around a fantasy game that allows online players to trade "securities" whose prices forecast the first four weeks of box office revenue for new and yet-to-be-released films. Late last week, traders could "buy" stock in "The Cat in the Hat" (released on Friday), at $130 a share, meaning that the market expected four-week box office receipts of $130 million. Or they could buy "Spider-Man 2," due for release next May, at $235 a share, or even "Spider-Man 3," which has not yet been made and won't be released for years, at $87.

The exchange's appeal lies in the premise that the collective wisdom of large numbers of traders can most efficiently determine the value of properties that would otherwise be hard to assess.