In another trip down the rabbit hole to where things are odd indeed, SpikeSource, Kim Polese's open source stack operation, is going to certify all of its SpikeIgnited open source applications on Windows.

In concert with Microsoft, it says.

SpikeIgnited includes BI, ECM, collaboration, e-mail, CRM and web content management software, the kind of stuff that Microsoft supplies.

The announcement quotes Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy Bill Hilf as conceding that "a significant number of enterprise customers with open source applications run those applications on Windows server" so it's trying to be cooperative and win interoperability points.

SpikeSource, which isn't believed to be doing all that well, says it recently shipped an unidentified Windows-certified SpikeIgnited product to NEC for customers who have been asking for dual-certified Linux/Windows applications.

Maybe it was Drupal, the open source web content management project, which is the first SpikeSource product to be Windows-certified, making it SpikeSource's first non-Linux product. It's used by sites such as The Onion and MTV in the UK.

Apparently it'll take until the end of the year to certify everything SpikeSource has got on Windows.

• Microsoft Wants its Licenses Declared Open Source Licenses