Flaccid words

Posted Jun 20, 2007 15:36 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
Parent article: Mandriva: We will not go to Canossa

Mandriva doesn't say it won't do a patent deal with MS, they just say "we dont believe it is necessary for us to get protection from Microsoft".

Didn't Xandros also say it wasn't necessary, even after they did their deal?

These no-MS-deal statements are getting weaker and weaker.

Flaccid words

Posted Jun 20, 2007 16:15 UTC (Wed) by ajross (guest, #4563) [Link] (3 responses)

If you're a struggling company, it's very difficult to say "no" to a deal with cash attached to it. And Microsoft has more cash than they know what to do with.

Honestly, the world was always too small for all the niche distro companies out there (not the niche distros -- there will always be room for Debian, even Gentoo -- but there is only so much linux revenue to go around). Microsoft is just taking advantage of a failure mode already present.

Community reaction

Posted Jun 20, 2007 16:24 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (2 responses)

I'm disappointed at the limp words of Mandriva, but my main point was that the news relayers are misreporting this and the community in general is celebrating too quickly.

If Mandriva gave a firm commitment, then they should be commended, but this statement isn't a firm commitment on anything. This is just some passing comments about the World.

Community reaction

Posted Jun 20, 2007 18:28 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

I read this as a fairly strong response. it's one tiny step from accusing microsoft of extortion.

now if microsoft were to prove that there was an issue the distros would either remove the offending items or pay for it (and pass the cost on to the users)

note that this is exactly what the situation is with things that are known to be covered by patents like MP3

Community reaction

Posted Jun 21, 2007 9:47 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

We can get strong anti-MS sentiment out of free software companies any day of the week.

On the issue at hand - spineless and shameless friends paying MS for patent protection - Mandriva has just repeated Xandros's position. That doesn't give me much hope for Mandriva.