When I read the first few sentences of the Dana Blankenhorn/Paula Rooney blog post on Steve Ballmer I got the feeling of deja vu. It felt like he was describing the war on terror, in particular what is currently being waged against the likes of Al Qaeda.

"You can’t fight open source as you would fight IBM, or Novell, or the U.S. Justice Department, the enemies from the 1990s. Those foes put their pants on one leg at a time, just like Microsoft did.

Open source is not like that. Open source is not a person, or a company, but a movement. It’s an idea. It’s like water. You fight water you drown."

Boy, that sure sounds like the way many an opponent of the "war against terrorism" defines the war. " Fighting a New Kind of War" says Time magazine! " America gears up for a new kind of war" says Guardian Unlimited!

The parallels, however, are not just restricted to words. The Blankenhorn/Rooney post also focuses on the futility of Microsoft's 90s style war on Open Source when they should really be fighting it some other way. They also speak about turmoil within Microsoft as to how they should respond to or clarify Ballmer's comments.

Talk of weird parallels!