Autodesk Contributes Web Mapping Software to Open Source Community: Yahoo! Finance
Those of you working on the digital cartography side of storytelling will understand this better than I. Autodesk has created MapServerFoundation.org/: "a nonprofit organization whose goal is to provide a supportive framework for open, collaborative development of geospatial software."
The discussion on Slashdot runs to the cynical side; however, I wonder if Autodesk isn't seriously viewing this as their best alternative to compete with ESRI.