Even as Microsoft has slipped into the mainstream of open source by embedding it in its products and adopting open-source strategies for services such as customer relationship management, it continues its subversive fight against Linux.

February 9, 2009 8:07 AM PST
Posted by Matt Asay
C/Net News

Linux is different, you see. Open source, as Microsoft is starting to recognize, is just another part of its ecosystem, one that it must support, if it wants Windows to continue to be a first-class computing citizen.
The open-source operating system, however, is competition--Microsoft's top competition, if CEO Steve Ballmer's words are to be taken at face value.
In this context, Microsoft's recent patent deal with Brother makes sense. Otherwise, as ZDNet UK opines, it's a deal that causes much head-scratching:

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