We Love Open Source: Says Microsoft

Microsoft claiming that it loves open source?!

Seriously, in a recent Network World interview, Microsoft’s General Manager of Interoperability and XML Architecture Jean Paoli said, “We [Microsoft] love open source” and that “We have worked with open source for a long time now.”

Yes, Microsoft is playing more nicely with open source in some ways. But then, they don’t have a choice in the matter. As Oracle CEO Larry Ellison pointed out, “Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane.”

Microsoft has long taken open-source programs and made them its own. For example, Windows’ first TCP/IP networking stack came from the open-source BSD Unix family.

There’s no doubt that Microsoft behaves better now with open source. When Microsoft recently violated the GPL by ripping off some code, a miracle happened. Microsoft reissued the Windows 7 program containing the open-source code under the proper license.

read Full article at : Computer World