Mandriva declines "protection money"

[unixronin]

"A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for...people who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security [...]"

So says Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, producer of Ubuntu Linux.  It seems Mandriva CEO François Bancilhon agrees:

"Interoperability between the Windows and Linux world is important and must be dealt with, and anything that helps this interoperability is a good thing," wrote Bancilhon, adding that "the best way to deal with interoperability is open standards."

"As far as (intellectual property) is concerned, we are, to say the least, not great fans of software patents and of the current patent system, which we consider as counterproductive for the industry as a whole," Bancilhon continued.  "We also believe what we see and, up to now, there has been absolutely no hard evidence from any of the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) propagators that Linux and open-source applications are in breach of any patents.  So we think that, as in any democracy, people are innocent unless proven guilty, and we can continue working in good faith."

The more, the merrier.  Just like their SCO sockpuppet, Microsoft has yet to show any tangible evidence of any patent infringement.  In fact, Microsoft hasn't yet even published a list of which patents it asserts are being infringed — they're just waving their hands around and making vague threats.  "Nice intellectual property suite you have here.  It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it."

Shuttleworth and Bancilhon are right on the mark.  This isn't an intellectual-property licensing agreement; it's a protection racket.

Comments

[darthgeek.livejournal.com]

Didn't most of SCOs lawsuits get dropped or are pending the outcome of their case vs IBM?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, almost all of their claims have been dismissed; they have a few they're still asserting that are in some way involved in IBM's countersuit, but I don't recall the details.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

http://groklaw.net

Errr, no. They're... uh.

Well, they're in the 3rd year of pretrial motions, and it looks like the judge is giving them a lot of rope.

They've got active cases with Novell (who sued them, IIRC), and IBM, and the AutoZone and Chrysler cases are on hold pending.

I, err, think. And I check groklaw every week or so...