In a shock move, today April 1st, Microsoft has announced that it will make the source code to Windows freely available under version 3 of the GNU Public License.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft explains it like this, "I was using my laptop in Starbucks as I usually do; recovering from blue-screens of death, dealing with viruses and so on, when I saw someone else was using a sleek, lean, robust operating system."

That operating system was Crux Linux. Ballmer has now become a devoted user.

"I realised there and then that Windows was just rubbish and that we'd been conning the entire world. Microsoft wants to turn over a new leaf," he says.

All senior management at Microsoft have started using Linux for day-to-day tasks, but converting some of the developers and IT support staff at the software company has been more difficult.

"We're getting there," says Ballmer, "but some software developers are a bit stupid. They think they might lose their jobs."

The most recalcitrant body has, however, been the Business Software Alliance, the tax-farming organisation. It sees its whole existence under threat and there has been dark rumours of a coup d'etat to bring back the old order.

Microsoft has often been regarded as the bully-boy of the IT world using its armies of lawyers and substantial cash pile to sue anyone it didn't like into submission.

"Those days are over," says Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, "from now on it's Mr Nice Guy."

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