Mark Shuttleworth on Ubuntu and Microsoft -- he's not signing nothing

Buried deep in his blog, Canonical head Mark Shuttleworth discusses his position on the whole Microsoft "intellectual property" claim regarding Linux and open-source software and what, as the man behind Ubuntu, he's comfortable and not comfortable doing with Microsoft. Here is his comment in its entirety:

Mark Shuttleworth says:

Neither Canonical nor the Ubuntu project have any interest in signing an agreement with Microsoft on the back of the threat of unspecified patents. We have consistently (but politely) declined to pursue those conversations with Microsoft, in the absence of any details of the alleged patent infringements.

Speaking for myself, I welcome Microsoft’s openness to the idea of improving interoperability between free software components such as OpenOffice and Microsoft Office, and believe that Microsoft’s customers, many of whom are now also Linux users, will appreciate Microsoft’s efforts in that regard. I have substantial reservations about the quality of the specification for Microsoft’s OpenXML document formats and do not believe that Microsoft will limit it’s own Office implementation to that specification, which makes the specification largely meaningless as a standard. A specification which Microsoft won’t certify as being accurate as a representation of Office 12’s behavior, and will not commit to keeping up to date in advance of future revisions to MS Office, is not a credible standard.

After many years of participating in the free software community I know that neither I nor any other free software programmer has any desire to infringe on any intellectual property (trademark, copyright or patent) of any other person or company. Many of us are motivated precisely to ensure that we work on platforms which DON’T cross that line. So it is somewhat offensive to be threatened with an allegation of an IP infringement. I’m sure Microsoft doesn’t realise that its actions are being received in that light, otherwise they wouldn’t continue. But it is getting rather tiresome. I would be very happy to see the details of any alleged patent infringement so that we can engage with Microsoft more constructively on the subject.

Mark

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, a and would like to actually deal with the issue rather than respond out of fear.

But most of all, he's not going to sign any IP agreements with Microsoft, meaning one of the biggest dominoes in free Linux will not fall.

(Thanks to commenter Zeke for tipping me to this item)