Linus hits back at Microsoft 'slurs'

Mundie detailed Microsoft's policy of allowing limited access to its products source code but also attacked the open source movement as an attack on intellectual property.

Torvalds pointed out that most modern science is based on similar principles to those used in the development of open source software.

In an email posted on the San Jose Mercury News site he said: 'I wonder if Mundie has ever heard of Sir Isaac Newton? He's not only famous for having basically set the foundations for classical mechanics (and the original theory of gravitation, which is what most people remember, along with the apple tree story), but he is also famous for how he acknowledged the achievement:

"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."

The email ended with the line: 'I'd rather listen to Newton than to Mundie. He may have been dead for three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room less.'