Microsoft's detente with the open-source world is growing stronger by the minute. Steve Ballmer said today that he wouldn't consider an open-source-based business model a deterrent to buying a company Microsoft found interesting.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has once more claimed that Linux and open source violates Microsoft's intellectual property and patents. Canonical's CEO Mark Shuttleworth thinks Ballmer has it all wrong.

Steve Ballmer is at least willing to talk with the open-source crowd now, as his comments at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2008 demonstrate. He's just not willing to actually engage in open source as an appreciable part of his company's business. Fair enough.

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.

These days, you have a broader choice of Internet browsers, despite the attempts by Microsoft to drive all the other browsers out of the space over the past decade. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains the most popular browser with a 65.9 percent share, but Mozilla’s open source Firefox has been showing a lot of strength in the past two years.

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.

Much is being said about Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comments on open source in Australia this week.

Steve Ballmer apparently likes open source. Well, so long as it drives Windows revenue. And doesn't replace any. Ever. In fact, as he said at an event in Microsoft last week in London that he hopes to see all open-source innovation going to Windows, rather than Linux (more below).

"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.