Some of Microsoft's efforts to disparage open-source software such as Linux have backfired, according to a recent memo by the software maker. Top Microsoft executives, including co-founder Bill Gates and Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, have long derided open-source software as being everything from a "cancer" to "Pac-Man-like." But those messages have failed to diminish the popularity of open-source programs such as Linux among developers and customers, according to a Microsoft memo distributed at a strategy meeting in Berlin in September.
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