In 2001, then-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer described Linux, and by extension open source in general, as "a cancer that attaches itself to everything it touches in an intellectual property sense." And in 2020, Microsoft's current president, Brad Smith, admitted the company was wrong.

He said so during a presentation at MIT earlier this week (via The Register). 'When open source exploded early this century, Microsoft was on the wrong side of history. The good news is that if you live long enough, you learn that you need to change... . that you can learn.

Microsoft's antipathy toward open source at the turn of the century is understandable. You can't blame a software company for worrying about free (and wonderful) alternatives to the programs it charges for. But even Steve Ballmer changed his attitude toward open source in 2016.

Smith's comments are no great surprise, given the unstoppable rise of the open source movement, which continues to thrive today. Nevertheless, Ballmer in 2001 might have shuddered at the news that Windows 10's File Explorer can now easily integrate Linux files. The possibility of an open source Windows 10 was even floated in 2015. Microsoft acquired GitHub for $7.5 billion in 2018, and the company's latest version of Windows Edge even uses code from the open source Chromium project.