Of particular interest is the fact that nothing has been said about the role which Mono will play in the deal. Mono, for the uninitiated, is the project run by Gnome co-founder Miguel de Icaza, to try (desperately) and replicate Microsoft's .NET development environment on Linux. It is now part of Novell after it bought Ximian, de Icaza's company, four years ago.

What has been made public about the Novell-Microsoft deal is listed below:

1. Microsoft will pay Novell about $US348 million over five years. Around $US240 million of this is for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server "certificates" that Microsoft can resell, distribute or use.

2. Under a patents deal Novell will get $US108 million from Microsoft for use of Novell's patents. Novell will pay $US40 million annually for five years to Microsoft which has agreed not to raise patent claims against Novell's end-user Linux customers.

3. Microsoft will pay $US60 million for joint Linux/Windows marketing, mostly for pushing virtualisation. Microsoft is paying $US34 million to push the joint Linux/Windows offering. An interoperability lab is part of the deal - a group that works to improve the way Linux and Windows work together.

In an interview that de Icaza gave recently to a "friendly" journalist (perhaps that qualification isn't needed; de Icaza only speaks to journalists who ask him inane questions), he made mention of his wishlist - that the "deal should include a technical Mono/.NET collaboration, and even go as far as Microsoft recommending Mono for all of their developers looking at migration."