Microsoft Accidentally Goes Open Source
    
		Microsoft has paid a fair amount of lip service over the years to  opening up to open source, while at the same time making patent threats and  generally mixing its messages. Well, evidently, Microsoft is more interested in  open source than anybody at the company realized.
Apparently, a Windows 7 download utility contains code protected by the  open source General Public License version 2, meaning Microsoft can modify the  code -- which Redmond says came from a third-party -- but then has to release the  modified code to the open source community. Amazingly, that's what Microsoft  plans to do. 
For more on how this happened and how somebody sniffed it out, check  out the Q&A here. 
 
	Posted by Lee Pender on November 16, 2009