>From http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2154521,00.asp......
Red Hat to MS: Let's Talk Interoperability (By Peter Galli - July 3, 2007)
Even though patent talks between Microsoft and Red Hat broke down last year
before Microsoft went on to sign a technical collaboration and patent
indemnity deal with Novell, Red Hat is still willing to work with the
Redmond software maker on the interoperability front.
But the Linux vendor wants to limit those talks to pure interoperability
between Windows and Red Hat Linux, with the goal of solving real customer
problems, Paul Cormier, Red Hat's executive vice president of engineering,
told eWEEK.
"I want to talk to the folks at Microsoft about our two operating systems
and how we can work together to solve real customer problems without
attaching any unrelated strings, such as intellectual property," he said.
While Cormier declined to comment on why its earlier talks with Microsoft
fell through, he ruled out any possibility of Red Hat doing a deal with
Microsoft like the controversial patent agreement and covenant not to sue
that Redmond penned with Novell last year, especially after viewing the
limited information that is publicly available on that deal.
But Microsoft officials said their position is that the issues of
interoperability and intellectual property are not completely separate, and
have to be considered together, meaning there is a de facto standoff between
it and Red Hat on this issue.
While Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president for server and tools,
told eWEEK recently that the company would be happy to work with Red Hat and
others on interoperability, he noted that it still has to think about
intellectual property, the licensing of that, and the issues around it,
which are not totally separate issues.
"So, in terms of helping to drive conversations with those guys, we're open
to talking to them about interoperability; we're always open to talking
about this," Muglia said.
"But it is necessary to have a conversation about intellectual property when
it comes to open source, and you can't just sit back and talk about
interoperability for interoperability's sake without fully solving the
customer issue. Unless you actually address the issues around IP, you
haven't fully solved the customer's interoperability problem," Muglia said.
Cormier disagrees with that assessment, saying that there is a long history
in the industry where open standards, open interfaces and vendors willing to
put customers first have been able to readily solve any interoperability
challenge. "We are prepared to do our part," he said.
For Muglia and Microsoft, it is not that simple. While it is one thing to
talk about how open-source technologies could interoperate with Microsoft
software, "you have to complete the picture," he said, adding that Microsoft
already supports Red Hat software in its current Virtual Server product.
While Muglia acknowledged that interoperability work could take place
without tacking on the IP issue, he is reluctant to do so.
"We do know how to do this and there are ways in which we can have
interoperability work without the IP conversation," Muglia said. "My main
point about IP is that you actually haven't solved the customer's
interoperability problem unless you have also solved the licensing issue,"
he said, pointing out that Red Hat is now also a member of the
Interoperability Vendor Alliance.
When Red Hat joined the Alliance, Shaun Connolly, the vice president of
product management for JBoss, a division of Red Hat, said in a press release
that "enterprise customers count on Red Hat to run their businesses, and
they expect nothing less than the ability to leverage Red Hat solutions with
their existing technology investments. Through the alliance, we will work
with industry vendors to ensure that the Red Hat customer experience is
transparent and seamless in spite of heterogeneous environments."
Muglia, when asked if the topic of interoperability and support for Linux
distributions other than SUSE Linux has come up at its Interoperability
Executive Customer Council, said it had, and again pointed the finger
directly at Red Hat.
"But our message was really very simple: 'go and talk to Red Hat, because we
very much would like to do that,'" he said.
Check out eWEEK.com's Linux & Open Source Center for the latest open-source
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