Well, using the term ‘open source’ more anyway.

Sure, they’ve been talking about their involvement in open source initiatives for years (CodePlex, MSDN Gallery and others).

But here’s a suggestion. Over the next few weeks, make a note of how often you hear the term ‘open source’ popping up in conversations around Microsoft. Listen to podcasts, blogs, articles and the like. It’s going up as Microsoft attempt to bring down the ‘evil closed source’ arguments that are getting louder these days.

Why? Simply because if you hear ‘open source’ and ‘Microsoft’ associated together enough times, you actually start to consider them as an open source company.

By the way, Phil Haack’s post back in 2006 still has one of the best discussions of what constitutes open source. And his discussion of how this should be incorporated by Microsoft is a great read.

Are we completely insane? Keep your eyes and ears peeled and let us know your thoughts.