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...to put out a simple version of Basic.
However, it would be almost as easy for educators and textbook writers to put out their own version of Basic. Call it 'School Basic,' make it cross platform and free to download. Then all those textbook examples and those wonderful little programs that Scientific American used to put out can come alive again.
IOW, if we really want a universal programming language--and I think we do--then I think it's really up to the schools to maintain and develop it, exactly in the same way that schools maintain such universal languages as arithmetic and spelling. Companies just don't do arithmetic and spelling, no matter how much they depend on it, and it may be just as ludicrous to expect Microsoft to maintain Basic as it would be to expect that banks should teach people how to add, subtract, multiply and divide.
