“Wide Open News interviews Hotmail savior and open source
community member Michael Chaney.“
“On Christmas Day, Linux freak and Perl programmer Michael
Chaney prevented a Hotmail meltdown by pressing the “Make Payment”
button to bail out Microsoft, which had neglected to pay a $35
domain name registration fee for Passport.com. Microsoft told
Chaney it will pay him back. In an interview with Wide Open News,
the Nashville-based Chaney responds to suggestions that he deserves
more money from Microsoft, saying he’d much rather never hear Billy
Ray Cyrus sing “Achey Breaky Heart” ever again….”
“Why did you pay the fee?”
“I did it for two reasons, really. First, to see what would
happen, and second, to help people get their Hotmail. I have
friends who literally rely on Hotmail for their email. I can’t
imagine the number of people who wanted to email their friends and
family at Christmas, and couldn’t….”