Mark Shuttleworth, the South African entrepreneur and an founder of Canonical Ltd. and the Ubuntu Foundation, has said on his personal blog that there are no negotiations underway between Canonical and Microsoft to sign any deal to prevent suing over patent infringements.
The announcement puts an end to speculation that Ubuntu would be the next to sign such an agreement, after Novell and Linspire. Novell and Linspire have both been highly criticized in Linux circles for what is seen as legitimizing Microsoft's claims of patent infringement by Linux.
According to Shuttleworth:
"Allegations of 'infringement of unspecified patents' carry no weight whatsoever. We don't think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together. A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for. It does not protect users from the real risk of a patent suit from a pure-IP-holder (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security."
