To be more precise, this is what Steve Ballmer said back in 2001:

> [...] Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.

https://web.archive.org/web/20011108013601/http://www.suntim...

I think this is a case of "it doesn't look good, but the more you think about it the less bad it looks." There's a kernel of truth in the unfortunate wording. GPL (certain versions) is problematic if you want to keep your related code closed source. When I interned at Microsoft, you had to get approval from legal to use open sourced code specifically for copyright liability reasons.

I'm sure Ballmer also disliked Linux for other reasons, but this line makes for an ambiguous example of it.

Given that Microsoft has been pretty enthusiastic about tools like VSCode and Linux support on Azure, I'm personally cautiously optimistic with Nadella at the helm.

But in fact, copyright is the cancer. There is no way to disable copyright. Even if you put something in the public domain, copyright will reattach itself and future users can be legally denied full access to it. Copyleft is the cure for copyright. It's the only cure we know.

Except that GPL comes with its own set of restrictions and it forces these restrictions on every bit of code it touches. LGPL is a bit better but I find the line confusing and blurry often. Many people do not believe it to be the cure at all.

Many people don't understand what they're talking about. Those restrictions you talk about are purely to stop copyright reattaching itself in the future.

Anyone who uses copyleft really wants to declare the following: "This is not copyrighted and derived works shall never be copyrighted." That is not possible with current copyright law. Copyleft is the only way to get that.

GPL is not about enforcing restrictions, it's about doing what's necessary to neutralise the damaging effects of copyright. The fact that is uses copyright to achieve that makes it one of the greatest hacks of all time.

Microsoft specifically also stated that Linux "mutates" in anti-Linux advertisements, for example https://doraj.com/wp-images/2005/03/microsoft-vorteile.jpg

This fits pretty well with Microsoft calling Linux a "cancer".

(Note that you also have to carefully review licensing of libraries used with proprietary licenses; that's not a problem caused by open source unlike the quote wants to imply. Proprietary licenses also tend to "contamine" a project and make the entire project non-free, so that is not specific to open source either.)

It's not a misquote and it's not disingenuous. That was their attitude at the time.

Sounds like they were referring to GPL (and similar), not OSS in general.

It is a misquote. See above. He was talking about Linux not open source, and specifically about the licence that Linux has chosen to use.

It would be entirely reasonable to find it an objectionable comment nonetheless, but please find objectionable what he actually said, not some alternative version.

OSS was built on the GPL. Clutching at straws, that is.