Microsoft is back-peddling on its own legal department's claims that it will start suing Linux users for IP theft.

Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's VP for intellectual property and licensing, in an interview said that Redmond wants to create more arrangements that mirror the company's deal with Linux distributor Novell.

Gutierrez said that Microsoft was not litigating, as it would have done that years ago.

However the threat to sue might come from the fact that the Free Software Foundation, the group that controls Linux licensing terms, is mulling changes to open source copyrights that would prohibit Linux distributors from entering into the type of quid pro quo that Novell has with Microsoft.

According to Intelligent Enterprise, Redmond is unhappy with the changes in the GPL v.3 which it says attempts to tear down the bridge between Microsoft and the Open Source community.

More here.