The former president of software and PC giant Microsoft Brad Smith has said that the company was "on the wrong side of history" on the subject of open source.

Speaking to the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab – as reported by The Register – Smith said that he's happy with the fact that Microsoft is in favour of open source these days. Back in 2001, Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer said that "Linux is a cancer." 

"Microsoft was on the wrong side of history when open source exploded at the beginning of the century and I can say that about me personally," Smith said. "The good news is that, if life is long enough, you can learn... that you need to change."

The Microsoft of today is a rather different beast to the Big M of 2001. The firm bought open source code-focused website Github back in 2018 for $7.5bn. Balmer admitted in 2016 that he was also wrong on the subject of open source, too.