In a posting to the Mozilla development planning discussion group, the head of Microsoft’s open source software lab has extended an offer to Mozilla Corp. to help ensure the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client will run under Windows Vista.

Representatives from Mozilla noted quietly to each other, “… Why is Bill Gates holding the door for us and smiling like that. It’s really creeping me out!”

I can appreciate that Bill’s Army would like to test as much popular software as possible on the new Windows Vista Operating system, but this has more stink on it than a burned tuna casserole. “Come on in, guys! Just put your jackets and software anywhere, it’s all safe here. No one’s going to go through anything or anything!”

Firefox currently munches on about 15% share of the browser market, and I see no reason why Micrsoft would want to help them unless they had another motive. Especially considering how popular the Mozilla products are among those who have the skill to pry Microsoft IE from their system. After all, IE is an “integral part of the operating system and can’t be separated”. Microsoft lawyers are funny, funny people.