Red Hat at the LinuxWorld tradeshow has called upon Microsoft to publicly and in writing promise not to use software patents against users and individual developers of open source software.
"Let"s leave customers out of this debate," Red Hat"s deputy general counsel Mark Webbink told delegates at the Linux conference. "If Microsoft has intellectual property that needs to be respected, come to Red Hat, come to Novell, but leave our customers out of it. There is no cost to Microsoft for doing this and it would prove their sincerity."