Tags: Linux, Microsoft, Ubuntu

Mandriva rejects Microsoft’s offer of the patent protection deal

After Ubuntu and Red Hat, Mandriva has become the latest Linux company to reject the Microsoft’s offer of a patent protection deal.

The trend started with Novell signing on a deal with Microsoft which meant Novell and their customers were safe from any Microsoft lawsuit related to Linux’s infringement of their patented technologies.

Incidentally, Microsoft has not released any information on which patents Linux and other open source software infringe upon.

Francois Bancilhon, Mandriva’s chief executive confirmed in a blog post that they are not going to sign a similar deal with Microsoft.

He wrote: “Interoperability between the Windows and Linux world is important and must be dealt with, and anything that helps this interoperability is a good thing. 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. 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.”

Mark Shuttleworth of Canonical, the company behind the much popular Ubuntu Linux distribution had also said something similar in a blog post. He had said: “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.”