Last updated on September 8th, 2018
By the time open source began gaining notoriety in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Microsoft saw a threat to the way it sold software and services and went on the PR offensive — with no small amount of hyperbole. But Microsoft’s feud with open source has been sputtering for quite some time, and the senior managers who led the anti-open source charge are gone from the scene — or at least no longer in positions of authority. Open source is now routinely used by corporations around the world, and the company’s sniffy put-downs only fed into the perception of Microsoft as out of touch.