Shuttleworth - "Homey Don’t Play That Game"
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In a move that again shows he tends toward iconoclast, and not follower, Mark Shuttleworth spoke on his own blog today about his lack of excitement about working with Microsoft on any basis.
Mark states that the licensing issues, and patent infringement smack, from the saber-rattlers at Microsoft are just that. He calls the implications from MS totally without merit, and believes that any agreement that has been entered into by other companies with Microsoft has a placebo effect only, not giving those involved enough protection from legal recourse. Shuttleworth dismisses the agreements as ‘trinkets in exchange for air kisses’, and says no thanks.
Also on the open letter was his criticism of Microsoft for trying to impose the Open XML standard, instead praising the Open Document format pioneered by Sun. Shuttleworth believes MS should work towards greater interoperability with all of the Open Document formats.
In a later paragraph of the same entry, Mr. Shuttleworth announces that he would work with Microsoft to expand the scope of the free software movement.
Perhaps this former astronaut has a larger world view than the one available in Redmond.
Tags: mark shuttleworth, canonical, ubuntu, microsoft, open document format, sun
2 Comments
eldergeek
June 19th, 2007
at 4:51pm
I agree with Mark Shuttleworth. MS deserves to be treated with a healthy dose of suspicion and cynicism. They’ve sufficient track record to justify it.
theoracle
June 19th, 2007
at 5:37pm
The term FUD did come about because of MS, and I still remember that MS has never really been a good citizen…in DOS days the saying went ‘The job’s not done, ’til Novell won’t run’.
Thanks for the comment Don