Despite what you’ve heard, the online version of Office 2010 announced by Microsoft earlier this week won’t be free to corporate users, and isn’t a threat to the likes of Google, Adobe, or even Zoho, which sells online productivity software to small and medium-sized businesses.

Microsoft is embracing cancer to help ensure Windows survives server-room consolidation. The company has released 20,000 lines of Windows kernel code under version two of the GPL. Microsoft called the license it once hated "the community's preferred license". How things have changed.

Beyond the blatant PR efforts, assessments suggest the patch is a self-serving Trojan horse

Microsoft has had a checkered past with both Linux and its open source GPL licensing structure, so the move was a jaw dropper. Here is a look at some of the milestones since Microsoft internal memos leaked in 1998 that attacked the open source Linux operating system as it began to pick up steam as an alternative to Windows.

Is the Free software debate being captured by those who just exploit it?

NASSCOM turns its back on digital autonomy and gives Microsoft a platform for nationwide lock-in

Novell uses intellectual monopolies to make business

More analysis of Microsoft's approach to competitors' territory