Every time Ballmer makes these increasingly vague claims—this makes the fourth go-around in the last four years by my count—open source and legal experts jump all over him. He ignores them and life continues. Ballmer is sending two other hidden messages though. Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, Ubuntu's corporate Linux backer, pointed them out to me in a recent conversation.

In a recent CNET interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Ballmer calls out two "primary forces" for Microsoft in the enterprise: Oracle and Linux. These are the things that keep Microsoft's Ballmer up at night.

One of the enduring soap operas this year has involved the ongoing patent infringement threats by Microsoft against “Linux, OpenOffice, email, and other open source software.” According to Microsoft, 235 of its (unnamed) patents are being infringed, and it should be entitled to be paid for this use of its intellectual property.

After reading an InformationWeek article about Steve Ballmer suggesting, yet again, that GNU/Linux users - or at least the Red Hat users - owe Microsoft money for violating patents he, yet again, refuses to disclose. But Ballmer is missing something - or maybe I am.

It’s become an annual event. Steve Ballmer shoots his yap about how Linux and open source violate Microsoft patents. The open-source community says, “OK, show us your cards, your patents,” and Ballmer shuts up for six months or so.

"We will do some buying of companies that are built around open-source products," Ballmer said during an onstage interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Steve Ballmer has been the CEO of Microsoft since year 2000. As you probably know, he is a bit eccentric guy. So far Steve has produced dozens of absolutely "outstanding" quotations which definitely should be known. So, here is the list of Steve Ballmer's most famous quotes. Have fun ;)

Everyone in the Linux world remembers Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's famous comment that Linux is a "cancer" that threatened Microsoft's intellectual property. In 2010 Microsoft is trying hard not to be public enemy No. 1.

Steve Ballmer called Linux a "Cancer" in the past, ranted about patent infringement, accused Linux programmers of ripping-off intellectual property, and penned a deal between rival Novell to sell Linux. Wait, that last one doesn't fit with the others.