The trade press reported a lot of rumors this past week about the chances for a patent protection pact between Red Hat and Microsoft similar to the agreements Microsoft negotiated with Novell, Xandros, and Linspire. Red Hat doesn't appear to be interested in the least. Here's why.

"Like most of you, I was more than a little surprised when Linspire decided to join the Microsoft patent protection ring."

THERE ARE SIGNS of desperation at Redmond as Microsoft tries desperately to get punters to buy its latest operating system Vista.

Windows users were at risk for in-the-wild vulnerabilities fewer days on average last year than users of rival operating systems from Apple, Novell, Red Hat and Sun, a Microsoft executive claimed.

Last time, we discussed Microsoft, their approach to protecting patents and why the enforcement of this is going to cost them much more than just some market share. Today, we will be taking this a step further by examining what they are losing out on by continuing with their dinosaur approach to creative property.

Red Hat, the largest Linux vendor, and Ubuntu-maker Canonical have both rejected calls from Microsoft to forge a deal similar to the one the Redmond giant signed with Linux distributors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire.

"The Linux faithful might be staring down the barrel of another round of Microsoft's legal taunts, but at last week's Linux Foundation Summit, the reaction was more ho-hum than oh-no."

Novell, Xandros and Linspire have signed well publicized agreements with Microsoft. Rumors on the Web have hinted that Mandriva might be next on the list. Mandriva believes in interoperability, which must be based on open standards, like ODF. They also believe that software patent threats are just FUD. So no deal with Microsoft from Mandriva.