Microsoft Offers Support to Mozilla updated at: Wednesday August 23rd 2006, 4:00 pm Let’s face it. Microsoft till date has been no friend of the open-source movement. There is enough bad-blood between open source evangelists and Microsoft to fill up pages. However this could be soon changing. In a rather unusual move, Microsoft has issued an open invitation to the Mozilla Corp. to bring both its Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail application into the Windows fold. This rather sporting offer was made by Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab, at a posting on the Mozilla development planning newsgroup. He went on to say that the software giant was willing to offer its support in getting Firefox and Thunderbird to run very smoothly on Vista. The offer is for four Mozilla developers to be present at the Windows Vista Readiness ISV Lab. The lab is a four-day event held in Redmond every week through December and provides office space for four people, hardware, VPN access, and communication with product team developers and support staff. While most long time tech readers might find this funny, it is a good sign. This meas that Microsoft is taking its next-gen platform seriously and is willing to even open its doors to organizations it has had acrimonious relationships with at best.