Red Hat has made it clear: it won’t enter into a deal with Microsoft like the one Novell struck with the Redmond software giant. But Red Hat does want to interoperate with its rival. What’s a leading Linux distributor to do? Have its cake and eat it too? Refuse the patent covenant and forge an alliance anyway?

Not if Microsoft has anything to say about it.

Microsoft says it’s no game unless Red Hat agrees to mutual patent indemnification. Microsoft says you can’t separate interoperability from patent issues. Microsoft says what’s good for Novell, Linspire and Xandros is good for Red Hat.

Red Hat begs to differ.

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And so the discussion is at an impasse once again. Most industry analysts agree, though, that if Microsoft hopes to serve its customers through interoperability, then patent indemnification shouldn’t be the main issue. Openness should be, they say.

What say you?