Microsoft has become a sponsor of The Open Source Census, a project started earlier this year that aims to track and catalog the use of open-source software in enterprises worldwide, the group announced Monday.

Industry analysts are scratching their heads after Microsoft recently decided to join a project measuring how people are using open source software. The Open Source Census is run by OpenLogic, a company that aims to help organisations obtain, use and control open source software -- programs where the underlying code is open to everyone to see and to share ideas on improving it.

No user of free and open source software (FOSS) can escape having an opinion about Microsoft. Microsoft products and technologies represent what FOSS users have left behind. Some consider it increasingly irrelevant, and others a shadowy figure comparable to Satan in the Middle Ages or the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

How long has this 'census' been out for?

t seems we’ve arrived upon Microsoft open source. In the last couple of years, whenever there was discussion of Microsoft’s open source projects and efforts such as CodePlex or Port25, there was typically the standard open source response: it’s not OSI-approved; it’s not real open source.

The FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) Community knows, thanks to leaked Microsoft internal documents, that since about 1998 Microsoft has been in a sort of war against them. Because of this, it is not surprising that the FOSS community has looked at Microsoft with suspicion and has vilified it to no end. But, is Microsoft really evil?

The Open Source Census goes way beyond the traditional, too rarely used Linux Counter.

The latest Microsoft move to upset open source advocates is word the giant of Redmond is helping sponsor the open source census.

Microsoft's most recent move to support for open source is its sponsoring the Open Source Census.