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Shuttleworth Says No Patent Deals With Microsoft
christian.einfeldt writes "The FOSS press has speculated for some time now that Mark Shuttleworth would probably not agree to any patent 'protection' deals with Microsoft, but blogger Steven Rosenberg has found a page on Shuttleworth's personal blog ('Here Be Dragons') that unambiguously sets out Shuttleworth's opposition to Canonical's participation in any such deal. Rosenberg summarizes Shuttleworth's position in these terms: 'So there you have it — Canonical welcomes any efforts by Microsoft to improve "interoperability," isn't a fan of OpenXML, doesn't want to infringe on anybody's patents or trademarks, thinks Microsoft's threats are ill-advised, and would like to actually deal with the issue rather than respond out of fear.'
So now we have a site for nerds, that quotes an unknown blogger quoting Shuttleworth.
Great, I will link to the slashdot article in my blog. Maybe I get slashdotted and we get a dupe.
Cant't we go straight to the source?
Canonical is out of range of Microsoft's Patent arsenal. Mark is also a smart guy and knows what's really going on.
I think everyone kinda knew this already, though it is nice to be sure.
here is the source: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/125#comme nt-112738
It is good to know Mark doesn't fold under bogus patent threats like novell/xandros/linspire did. keep up the good work Ubuntu :)
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
...to link direct to Shuttleworth's post on his blog?
This is great. Hopefully the Linux community will now consolidate around Canonical and Red Hat -- already, two leaders who have done well by listening to what people want and simply delivering quality free software without any strings attached -- now, the two who are sane enough to avoid getting in bed with Microsoft.
As the also-rans sign their lives away to the Beast of Redmond, their users will disappear. They will become irrelevant, because nobody wants to run Microsoft Linux. And the fragmentation of Linux will gradually go away as everyone consolidates around Ubuntu and Red Hat (and Red Hat respins such as CentOS).
I'm looking forward to it.
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Shuttleworth runs Canonical Ltd, the folks who sponsor U/Ku/Xu/Edubuntu.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Here's a better link: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/127 This one is a top-level entry in Shuttleworth's blog in which he states his position. The one TFA references is a comment attached to some other blog entry.
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If your readers have to look up the subject of the article, you've got it wrong.
Because news should only ever be about things everyone already knows! Heaven forbid that you might learn something new.
You might at least say who this guy is. We aren't all experts on the personnel of every Linux distribution.
:-)
Please turn in your Slashdotter card, and exit the building. The hounds will be released in 5 minutes.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
From what i have gathered by reading columns through the Internet (Internet!=true) is that Mr. Shuttleworth is okay with where he stands in life. He built a business that in turn was bought by Verisign which made him a lot of money. Using some of that money, he created Canonical as a framework for housing the Ubuntu development team.
So does he need to cross license with Microsoft? No. Why bother? He doesn't need the money, his company is small in terms of staff and he set forth a goal which is not to compete directly with Microsoft but a more altruistic level by addressing the computing needs of people in general. Hence the African word, Ubuntu, which means 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I am because of who we all are.'
With the latest level, 7.04, Canonical has made great strides in what I call the 'YMAD' (Your Mom and Dad's) environment. Using the Live CD, you can run the Ubuntu OS from the CD upon booting. Except for some encrypted wireless schemes, this OS basically runs well for the YMADs without us geeks stepping in to play help desk. But again, there are issues so it is not perfect. Installing the OS from the CD needs work as well.
Shuttleworth has taken the high road in his blog to state that he is pursuing an free (as in beer) Ubuntu or nothing configuration, meaning all apps, runtimes, and codecs are free according to GPL. And he is right to do so. By maintaining a clear Ubuntu track, this OS does not get bogged down in maintaining cross licensing or product dependencies. However there is one big dependency - Debian.
Debian must not sell out to Microsoft or Ubuntu will have a very rough road ahead. And for Debian not go with Microsoft will take the whole community to back it.
The ramifications? Microsoft is picking up the Linux stragglers from the herd. While in of itself is basically harmless to the Linux community, an aggregate of Linux distros may in effect encircle the community and slow it down due to the time it takes to fork and go on separately. Microsoft has the dollars and sheer momentum to go down this path. Ultimately, it will come down to [pure] Linux having just a few main branches to compete with Microsoft.
So who will it be?
Money is the root of all evil?
I linked to Steven Rosenberg's blog because he did a great job of finding a comment buried deep in Mark Shuttleworth's blog and because he nicely summarized Shuttleworth's opinion. Rosenberg broke that story by exhuming it from lots of other content on Shuttleworth's very active blog. Without Rosenberg's blog highlighting of Shuttleworth's blog entry, we /. readers would not have noticed it. Shuttleworth posted his comment on 15 June 2007, and a full day passed without that comment being noticed on /., which is a long time for a comment by the founder of a major GNU Linux distro to go unnoticed by /.
/. readers need.
Also, Rosenberg saved busy readers a bit of time by summarizing Shuttleworth's longer opinion. Shuttleworth clearly took the time to make sure that his comments were diplomatic and well-rounded, but the result is that his comments were not subject to the kind of quick-glance summary that many
So, in summary, I felt that Rosenberg provided two important journalistic services, and that he deserved to get the attention and traffic for his good work.
Aysa is critical of the decision to link to Roseberg's blog, but IMHO, Aysa's criticism is directed more toward his or her disdain for bloggers and evinces a bias toward big media. Aysa would have had no complaint if this same summary had appeared on say Newsforge. Notice that Aysa doesn't complain about the caliber of Rosenberg's summary or Rosenberg's editorial choice to discuss Shuttleworth's blog. Indeed, Aysa could not have made such complaints, because Rosenberg's summary is pithy and his choice to run a comment by news-making Shuttleworth was unimpeachable. Rosenberg's only "fault" was the fact that his work did not appear on Newsforge. IMHO, Aysa's criticism of the link to a blogger therefore lacks substance and shows a meritless disdain merely for Rosenberg's status. If journalism is good, it's good regardless of where it appears.