In the old days, when Microsoft wanted to kill the Open Source Movement, O'Reilly's Open Source Convention was where you found true software revolutionaries. Great coders, they also were idealists who believed software was something you shared. Then a funny thing happened. Open source went mainstream.

Even before Linux was created, Microsoft has been scorned by members of the free-software community. Its products are decried as defective by design, and its sometimes questionable business practices as an obstacle to technological innovation. That’s old news. What amazes me is Apple’s track record for openness is even worse than Microsoft’s.

Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom. For as long as anyone can remember Microsoft has been seen as the primary enemy of free and open source software (FOSS).

A not-so-alarmist post pointing to news about attempts to embrace and extend "Open Source" (mostly by Microsoft)

Is Microsoft a friend or foe of open source? Going by the company's actions, Microsoft can't seem to decide whether to make love or war. But if it's war, Microsoft appears to lack the legal weaponry to defeat or even disturb its adversaries.

Is Microsoft a friend or foe of open source? Going by the company's actions, Microsoft can't seem to decide whether to make love or war. But if it's war, Microsoft appears to lack the legal weaponry to defeat or even disturb its adversaries.

Is Microsoft offering an olive branch to open source and Linux? Or is Microsoft just putting the best possible face on its defeat by the EU justice system, and its recent statements are really just business as usual? If you ask people in the open-source community you'll find answers from one end of the spectrum to the other.

t seems we’ve arrived upon Microsoft open source. In the last couple of years, whenever there was discussion of Microsoft’s open source projects and efforts such as CodePlex or Port25, there was typically the standard open source response: it’s not OSI-approved; it’s not real open source.

Everyone in the Linux world remembers Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's famous comment that Linux is a "cancer" that threatened Microsoft's intellectual property. In 2010 Microsoft is trying hard not to be public enemy No. 1.