This is not just a dump of soon to expire patent. The patent grant and their support and commitment to indemnify anyone who uses it through OIN proves to me, that at least when it comes to this, they are acting in good faith.
Listen, my first job outta high school was at Red Hat. For the majority of my life I hated Microsoft and everything they stood for. The bottom line is, money talks (the virtues or lack thereof of that are for a different debate) and they realized that people became familiar with Linux which was superior for most non-desktop use cases, enabled innovation at a greater pace and also was a path around all the Microsoft bullshit and customers were abandoning ship. Eventually they had NO CHOICE but to evolve or die.