AT&T Tech Support 360No Microsoft-Ubuntu deal in the works, Canonical CEO says
Anyone expecting a technical and legal partnership between Microsoft and Ubuntu distributor Canonical to follow existing Microsoft-Linux deals will be disappointed--at least for now.
Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth in a blog posting on Saturday said a deal that resembles the pacts that Microsoft has signed with Linux distributors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire is not on the table.
He said Canonical has declined to talk to Microsoft about any agreement that provides legal protection to Ubuntu users related to "unspecified patents."
"Allegations of 'infringement of unspecified patents' carry no weight whatsoever. We don't think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together," he wrote.
Shuttleworth said these patent agreements create "a false sense of security" and do not effectively protect the user from a patent suit from a big company like Microsoft.
Canonical is a commercial company that sponsors free-software projects and provides services for the Ubuntu Linux distribution.
Following Microsoft's wide-ranging deal with Novell last fall, Microsoft in the past month has announced similar deals with Xandros and Linspire. They cover technical interoperability and offer legal indemnification to some customers who use those Linux distributions.
Microsoft has not yet sued any of those companies but has said it has identified 235 Microsoft patents on which Linux infringes.
Last week, Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and standards, Tom Robertson, said Microsoft is eager to extend these types of arrangements to other Linux and open-source companies, calling it an "issue of coexistence."
No deal between Microsoft and leading commercial Linux distributor Red Hat has happened. After the announcement of Microsoft's Novell contract, Red Hat said it would not pay an "innovation tax" to Microsoft.
Cold on Open XML
In the same posting, Shuttleworth said pursuing technical interoperability between rival document formats Office Open XML and OpenDocument--included in the other Linux deals--was not worth the effort. He did say Ubuntu stands to benefit from investments to improve interoperability between Linux and Windows.
"I have no confidence in Microsoft's Open XML specification to deliver a vibrant, competitive and healthy market of multiple implementations. I don't believe that the specifications are good enough, nor that Microsoft will hold itself to the specification when it does not suit the company to do so," Shuttleworth said.
OpenDocument Format, or ODF, is better, and Microsoft should improve its support for that standard, he said.
Shuttleworth did not rule out working with Microsoft in some capacity but made clear that the makeup of its existing Linux partnerships held little interest for Canonical.
"All the deals announced so far strike me as trinkets in exchange for air kisses," he said.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin.
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We'll do it without MS and we'll do it better than they ever could.
Money talks.
I can see RedHat standing on its own at the moment only because of the certifications it seems to be getting. Congratulations, RH.
Ubuntu is still a fledgling distro as far as Linux is concerned and though it's based on Debian, I don't see the key concept of Debian mirrored despite the massive PR around it.
I just don't think Canonical will stand on those words for very long. If it sees money, it'll follow.
Then again, I could be wrong - very very wrong.
Ubuntu has the DNA to affect Microsoft's monopoly.
I hope even if Microsoft offer billions to him,
he will continue to hold on to this.
Ubunta/Linux is history in the making.
Microsoft monopoly cannot go on.
On the other hand Ubuntu has a bright future, despite the fact that it is currently a very unpolished Linux distro. Its refusal to deal with the devil will only help propel it. Marks attitude is what is needed today. I only hope that they can eventually make Ubuntu a worthy replacement for SuSE, but they have a long way to go.
MS is so full of crap. Those alleged "235 patents" are either non-existent or all susceptible to invalidation, else MS would have disclosed them and drug people into court. The MS funded SCO debacle taught them that suing over bogus grounds is dangerous to the health of a company.
FUD campaigns and protection rackets are also worthless, but MS has nothing else to try and counter the OSS threat. Heaven forbid they actually try to compete on the basis of a solid product. I bet that idea has never occurred to anyone with decision making authority at the irrelevant behemoth.
If only somebody would take on MS and get rid of the FUD. Stop the division.
MS is clever... give money to a few, they'll divide the camp. I wonder if there was a way to counteract that. From within the community...
I've recently begun to realize how much the M$ suits hate computer users. Now I realize with all of this that they really don't want people to have the freedom to do anything on their PCs. It is completely ridiculous. Novell and other companies should not fall for this unless they truly believe that M$ will go after each of the millions of individual and corporate users. The results of M$ doing anything like that would destroy M$ as a business.
Mark Shuttleworth is right. M$'s approach and claims are a bunch of hooey.
What a fool believes!!--Michael McDonald
Oh wait, I forgot who I was responding to.