While downvoted for its lack of substance, the parent post does really capture the heart of the matter. Microsoft (or any other for-profit company, really) as

While downvoted for its lack of substance, the parent post does really capture the heart of the matter. Microsoft (or any other for-profit company, really) as an organization does not think in terms of being a friend or enemy of open source; that's a fiction projected upon it by people fixated on the idea of open source as a ideology (e.g. RMS) instead of a tool (e.g. Linus Torvalds). To paraphrase the famous quote by de Gaulle: "Corporations have no friends, only interests."[0]. Microsoft thinks in terms of "In this specific situation, do we make more revenue by cooperating with open source or by competing with open source?" and that decision is made on a team-by-team and product-by-product basis. On this basis, it's easy to see why they continue to work to get revenue from their patent portfolio while still doing things favorable to open source elsewhere. [0] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#Most_famous https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#Most_famous