Would Minecraft be in better hands if Notch open-sourced it instead of selling it to Microsoft?
Notch wasn't the only owner. In fact, he owns less than 50% and they have 40+ employees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojang
Open sourcing it would likely screw his co-founders, employees with stock options, etc. compared to the size of this deal.
Tbh, I'd be happier if he donated 10% of his earnings from this sale to Open Source projects and feeding people. Rather than, y'know, having gone the route you suggested. He also seems like the kind of guy that would.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100301103851/http://www.minecra...
"Once sales start dying and a minimum time has passed, I will release the game source code as some kind of open source."
So he can release it as open source, to make good on what? Some "About" page he wrote fucking 4 years ago when Minecraft was nothing but a PC indie sleeper hit?
Get real.
Especially a promise to a community that throws him under the bus whenever something happens they don't like (even if he isn't involved)?
I don't think that is reasonable.
"Once sales start dying...as some kind of open source".
I somehow suspect he might give money to something else in the end.
Piracy is not an argument in this, because pirating Minecraft for single player has always been and will always be piss easy, and multiplayer will still be impossible.