"As is well known, when Microsoft signs a deal on its
own terms, the other partner in the deal generally tends to fade
away over the next few years. The Red Hat deal is the first time
that Microsoft has had to settle for something less than the
minimum which it was offering all along.
"But still, until the entire agreement is out there, some are
not commenting. "As far as I know, the full text of the
RedHat/Microsoft interoperability agreement is not publicly
available, so I can't properly comment the deal," was the response
I got from Andrew Tridgell, who is probably one of the people best
qualified to comment, given his extensive experience in negotiating
and forcing Microsoft to disclose details of network protocols
which are used to work with Windows Server.
"Said Tridgell: "I certainly have no objection in principle to
interoperability agreements, and I am pleased that Red Hat have
gone to the trouble of pointing out that the agreement does not
contain any of the patent components that are so problematic with
the Novell agreement.""
