[mdlug] Mark Shuttleworth on MS patent threat

[Michael Corral]

From: "Ingles, Raymond"
> > "I think Microsoft and the Linux community will actually end 
> > up fighting on the same side of this issue."
> 
>  Unlikely but possible. The current patent regime is broken, and big
> companies are required to assemble big libraries of only semi-defensible
> patents to prevent being sued by other big companies. If MS could limit
> patents only to really novel inventions, they might be willing to go for
> that.

If you've seen some of their patents you'd know how far-fetched that is.
And they are pushing software patents big time in the EU.

I don't think Shuttleworth is naive enough to believe that MS will turn
against software patents. My guess is he's either talking out of his
tuchus or possibly he's laying the groundwork for some kind of
rationalization of a patent deal with MS, similar to Novell's. Given
Canonical's deal with Dell (which has joined the MS/Novell scheme),
as someone else mentioned, that may be the case. Although, for him
to say that Microsoft and Ubuntu are both about "empowering people
for the digital era", maybe he is just talking out of his tuchus. Either
way, if I were an Ubuntu user I'd be concerned that the billionaire
running the show is this confused.

Michael