Seriously, the "Days of our Lives" writers couldn't come up with this stuff if they tried. Just when everything was starting to seem all warm and fuzzy between Microsoft and the open-source community, this week brought so many twists and turns that it was difficult to keep up.

On the positive side was the company's work on the creation of the CodePlex Foundation, a non-profit group with a stated mission of increasing involvement in open source-projects. The group will be led on an interim basis by Sam Ramji, who is leaving his position as one of Microsoft's top open-source gurus.

Then there was the news that Microsoft wasn't following through quickly enough with the work needed to improve its much-publicized contribution of driver code to the Linux kernel. In a statement to ZDNet.com's Mary Jo Foley, a Microsoft spokesperson explained that the primary person on the project had been traveling for two weeks to meet with open-source representatives.

But the weirdest one of the week involved Microsoft's sale of a series of patents.

The Open Invention Network, a group that supports open-source interests, on Tuesday confirmed a Wall Street Journal report that it was the secret buyer of 22 patents that Microsoft had sold to another group, Allied Security Trust, over the summer. Microsoft had marketed the patents as Linux-related, said Open Invention Network CEO Keith Bergelt -- explaining that it was "odd" that Microsoft didn't approach his group to bid on them, given OIN's well-known activity as a patent acquirer.

"It makes me start to think, well, maybe there's an ulterior motive, because if you want the best and highest use of your assets, you'd come to us, because no one is more motivated to buy patents that are essentially presented as being Linux-related," Bergelt said via phone. "That being the case, the ulterior motive that I would ascribe, based on deduction, would be that there is some intent to utilize the patents to support a strategic agenda."

Bergelt said he suspects that strategic agenda was to stall or slow the growth of Linux by seeing the patents ultimately fall into the hands of organizations that would use them to pursue lawsuits against people who use or distribute Linux. Microsoft has said that it believes Linux and other open-source programs violate more than 200 of its patents.

Microsoft said it wasn't trying to keep the sale a secret. "It is important to note that we talked with multiple product companies that are members of OIN as well as AST," said David Kaefer, the company's general manager for intellectual property licensing, in an emailed statement. "If OIN wished to present an offer, nothing would have stopped them from doing so.”

On the broader subject of the patent sale, Microsoft offered this statement.

“We sold 22 patents to AST in July 2009. The terms were confidential. We acquired these patents several years ago as part of a larger business agreement with SGI. We are constantly evaluating our patent portfolio – which recently received top ranking in the software industry -- to ensure its makeup fits into the business goals of the organization. These patents were deemed to be non-core to our business and non-essential for our IP portfolio. When an interested buyer for this technology was identified, after discussing it both internally and with the potential buyer, we felt this was the right direction to go in relating to these specific patents.”

Jim Zemlin, the Linux Foundation's executive director, wasn't swayed, saying in a blog post that he believes Microsoft "got caught."

"It’s time for Microsoft to stop secretly attacking Linux while publicly claiming to want interoperability," he wrote. "Let’s hope that Microsoft decides going forward to actually try to win in the marketplace, rather than continuing to distract and annoy us with their tricky patent schemes."