Here is a writeup from Linus, titled "Why I 'Absolutely Love' GPL Version 2". Novell's CEO has also been interviewed about the deal with Microsoft.

How did the Novell/Microsoft deal come about?

[CEO Ron Hovsepian:] I called Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft, who was formerly CEO of Sam's Club and prior to that he was the CIO at Wal-Mart. So I called Kevin and asked him to be a customer again and I had this conversation about interoperability and Kevin responded wonderfully to it. The rest of the senior executives on the team called me the next day and we began this march of trying to put a customer-driven relationship together