Microsoft to indemnify Red Hat users?

Microsoft to indemnify Red Hat users?

Following the controversial patent indemnification agreement between Microsoft and Novell last week, Microsoft representatives expressed interest in creating similar deals with other major Linux distributors. The patent agreement, which has become a source of much controversy within the open source community, is an unusual cross-licensing arrangement. Novell pays Microsoft a royalty fee, and in return the Redmond software giant agrees not to sue any of Novell's customers.

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Ballmer: Linux users owe Microsoft

In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property. In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux "uses our intellectual property" and Microsoft wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation."

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