Mandriva, Ubuntu Not Interested in Microsoft Deals

Published: June 26, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

While a number of significant Linux players have worked out technology interoperability and patent covenant protection deals with Microsoft, there is by no means a consensus that working with the provider of the Windows platform for laptops, desktops, and servers in this manner is the correct course of action among the open source community--regardless of the benefits such deals have bestowed on their signers. Last week, Canonical, the commercial entity behind the Ubuntu variant of Debian, and Mandriva, which is itself a conglomeration of three Linux vendors, passed on such deals.

Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Canonical, was first up to pour water--well, it was a liquid, but it probably wasn't clear and it probably wasn't beer--on the rumors that Canonical might be inking a deal with Microsoft.

"We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements," Shuttleworth explained in his blog posting. "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. A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for. It does not protect users from the real risk of a patent suit from a pure-IP-holder (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security."

Shuttleworth went on to say that he didn't have much faith in the OpenXML specification to bridge the various office document formats out there, but said he was perfectly happy to work with Microsoft "in ways that further the cause of free software," provided that Microsoft adopts "a position of constructive engagement with the free software community."

Threatening in the press--but not in the courts--that Linux and various key open source programs violate 235 Microsoft patents is apparently not what Shuttleworth considers constructive engagement. Echoing the sentiments of an unspecified portion of the open source community.

Mandriva's chief executive officer, Francois Bancilhon, put his foot down a few days later and squashed rumors that his company might be next to ink a deal with Microsoft. In a short essay, entitled We Will Not Go to Canossa, Bancilhon drew on a historical example of Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, who is said to have stood on his head in the snow for three days in a castle in the Tuscan city that bears that name to get Pope Gregory VII to un-excommunicate him from the Roman Catholic Church way back in 1077.

"We also believe the best way to deal with interoperability is open standards, such as ODF, which we support strongly and we are ready to cooperate with everyone on these topics," Bancilhon said in his post. "As far as IP is concerned, we are, to say the least, not great fans of software patents and of the current patent system, which we consider as counter productive for the industry as a whole. We also believe what we see, and up to now, there has been absolutely no hard evidence from any of the FUD 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. So we don't believe it is necessary for us to get protection from Microsoft to do our job or to pay protection money to anyone."

Thus far, Microsoft has signed interoperability and patent covenant deals with Linux distributors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire. Red Hat, which is the dominant supplier of Linux in terms of corporate revenues, has shown no indication that it is interested in a deal with Microsoft.

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