Ubuntu says Microsoft is not the enemy

UBUNTU FOUNDER Mark Shuttleworth said that Linux and Microsoft are on the same side when it comes to battling software patents.

He predicted that Vole will be fighting huge court cases with patent trolls over the next few years.

Shuttleworth said that Vole was not going to start a patent trench war with Linux which they are certain to lose. The real threat to Linux is the same as Microsoft faces. Both companies could go down to a person or company that is not actually building software, but has filed patents on ideas that the GNU project and Microsoft are equally likely to be implementing.

Ironically he singled out a former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold and his company Intellectual Ventures as potentially the bad-guy of the industry. Myhrvol has been stockpiling patents at a rate that alarms large companies such as IBM and HP.

Shuttleworth said that the patent system, which allows software patents to exist in the first place, that needs to be fixed.

He told Techworld that he expected Linux to be targeted by a "definitive" patent lawsuit within the next ten years.

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