legally binding actually.

Any restrictions in the promise? Does it cover all of Mono or just some parts? Does it cover all of .NET or just a subset? Does it impose any restrictions on what you do with the technology, what products you can build with it?

Here's the text with full list of covered technologies. http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx It's not the same as the Novell deal which happened before the promise.

In short it's - as long as you conform to the specs, you're ok (no limits). On the other hand "Partial implementations are not covered.", so in practice anything could be argued here ;)

Does it covers supersets of the spec? I understand not all of the .NET platform is part of a formal standard.

It only covers Novell and its customers, IIRC.

Actually, it covers all implementors (the community promise does, that is).