Open Standards Will Do Just Fine, Thank You

On the heels of the confirmation by Novell's Justin Steinman that the Microvell deal does indeed include a patent license, despite earlier denials, Red Hat has confirmed that they continue to hold conversations with Microsoft regarding improved interoperability between Windows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat, however, has no interest in signing any deal which will include closed APIs, and is unlikely interested in licensing any Microsoft intellectual property in order to do so.

Red Hat will only sign an interoperability agreement with Microsoft if it is based entirely on open standards, the company's executive vice president of Engineering Paul Cormier told vnunet.com.

"Interoperability done on closed APIs isn't interoperability," Cormier said.

"We'll never do interoperability based on closed APIs."