From: Hillbilly on
Many software developers work as a sole proprietor; a legal structure for
business accounting and taxation. Most sole proprietors are rarely hired
as-is by corporations without going through the cadre of other pimps feeding
off the developer's skills and software the customer actually wants to buy.
Generally, the customer claims buying directly from the developer is too
risky because the developer might get hit by a bus and die and then what?

Developers can have a reasonable way to respond to this dilemma by placing
their intellectual property assets into escrow [1]. Upon such circumstances
which may occur when the developer is no longer alive and well, the customer
may then have access to the code and other assets the customer may use for
maintenance or on-going development.

Microsoft has been launching several code repositories and I wonder why they
have not done so in this context?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow