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221 Comments
- Ratteler, on 02/26/2009, -10/+197Woooo Hooo!!!! I actually hope M$ wins this one. This will also ***** almost every MP3, digital camera, and flash card producer, with the exception of the iPod.
Maybe this wil finally give the industry the incentive to move to ext3 or ZFS for portable devices ending the 2GB file size limit, and letting M$ go ***** themselves as yet another Windows lock in is broken out of. - schestowitz, on 02/26/2009, -11/+116“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” –Bill Gates
Hypocrites. - sliksta, on 02/26/2009, -4/+106MS planned this all along. I'm actually surprised they waited this long. FAT has been a ubiquitous file-system used for so many devices. MS wanted this. Once everyone is using it, then they decide to use their patent-attack. Best option of course is for manufacturers to quit using FAT and migrate to better file-systems.
- briarmoss, on 02/26/2009, -3/+104Patents are the nukes of software development.
- matthekc, on 02/26/2009, -1/+63Microsoft intentionally doesn't support competing file systems. Go figure.
- Nickedynick, on 02/26/2009, -2/+50Better file systems and alarmist statements aside, I really hope Microsoft do take on Linux with regards to patents. I'm not sure they could handle the sheer size of the backlash - it'd be fascinating to see pan out.
- matt247, on 02/26/2009, -7/+46don't hate the player, hate the game
- angryfirelord, on 02/26/2009, -4/+39Actually, I think it would screw over the iPod as well. The iPod formats itself as FAT32 when you hook it up to a Windows PC since it can't read HFS+ filesystems.
- Rolcol, on 02/26/2009, -3/+38Fat32 has a 4GB limit. It's still really annoying when making a disk image onto an external hard drive formatted as Fat32.
- thesandbender, on 02/26/2009, -0/+33If MS does win, how long do you think it will take companies who depend on flash... such as Sansa, Canon, Sony (cameras), etc... to create a solid, signed ext2/3/4 driver for XP and Vista? Right now no one does it b/c they don't have a business/financial reason to do so. This would create one in a hurry.
- ssweiti, on 02/26/2009, -1/+33Technology Patents should have a very short lifetime and become open to all developers. What's the point of locking it all the time when the innovative others can use it and add to its value.
It is quite understandable that once a company invests to create something it has the right to make profit out of it, and in this case, that was obviously accomplished.
Bullying others for their creativity reflects a totally unprogressive mentality that does not fit in our modern days.
Microsoft, grow up! - mrsteveman1, on 02/26/2009, -1/+29The touch and iPhone don't, and those are the future of the iPod line. They now use usbmux which is more akin to TCP/IP over USB, the filesystem on the device is never mounted by a host machine, lots of things are enabled by this switch and a lot of drawbacks of the old system are avoided. Internally these devices now appear to use case sensitive HFS+
- andycr512, on 02/26/2009, -0/+26bjornski: 4GB per file, not total.
- aladrin, on 02/26/2009, -0/+25I think you are thinking of trademarks, not patents.
- SeanyMac, on 02/26/2009, -5/+30I read this quickly and thought Microsoft were suing fat patients... now THERE'S a headline.
- UnWeave, on 02/26/2009, -8/+32Pretty sure "Bill Gates" is just one person, and that particular attack probably wasn't directly his doing. His opinions do not represent those of the entire Microsoft Corporation, and nor vice versa.
- inactive, on 02/26/2009, -1/+23Ipod's use fat32 if you use windows itunes...
- lordmike, on 02/26/2009, -1/+23There seems to be a lot of misconceptions over what this patent actually covers. It does not cover the actual FAT filesystem. That was developed almost 30 years ago and even our joke of a patent office wouldn't give a patent for that.. FAT32 is merely a variation of FAT and that's not covered, either. The patent covers the extended filenaming convention in VFAT... a small, but important point.
- djchester, on 02/26/2009, -1/+22No they are more like trip mines.
Good that software patents don't exist in EU legislation. - bobjohnsonmilw, on 02/26/2009, -6/+25Good just more reason for people to drop anything *****.
- nkassi, on 02/26/2009, -3/+21Go lick Ballmer's head fanboy.
- nkassi, on 02/26/2009, -0/+18HFS+ isn't where it's at. EXT4 and ZFS are the new to dogs. ZFS soon to be in OSX
- MasteRR, on 02/26/2009, -0/+16I hope this is the beginning of the all-out patent wars. If MS decides to take it's old patents and start shooting it could open the flood gates for IBM, Novell, Apple, and so many other companies to do the same. After all is said and done the patent office may be proven to be broken and we may finally get some reform.
- Wonderama, on 02/26/2009, -2/+18I see Ballmer in a wheelchair stroking a white Persian cat.
- jbird32275, on 02/26/2009, -2/+18So, what you're saying is.... YOU use FAT.
- ssweiti, on 02/26/2009, -1/+16If you read what I wrote you'd understand I'm on for patents but they have to have an expiry date and then become open to public (open source). Got it?
- absentmindedjwc, on 02/26/2009, -10/+25actually... I can see them easily losing this one. Normally with American patent law, you have to stay on top of technology and fight for your patents when you find someone infringing... since FAT has been used by pretty much everything for a very long time without MS bitching... TomTom can argue that MS has abandoned its patent and made the technology fair game.
- Tenareth, on 02/26/2009, -3/+18No, that's a trademark.
- imprestavel, on 02/26/2009, -0/+14I don't think it will end up any different then Unisys GIF patent claims.
- mrsteveman1, on 02/26/2009, -2/+16Yea they haven't said one word about attacking Linux with patents in the past........
- absentmindedjwc, on 02/26/2009, -3/+17by definition, suing someone is considered an attack.
- Ratteler, on 02/26/2009, -0/+14One of the number of small things that has kept Windows in it's dominate position, is the fact that FAT32 is pretty much accepted as the only universal file system format that can be read on any machine, to spite it's glaring limitations. NTFS can be read on OS X, and Linux... but still has issues being written too.
Even though the NT Kernel, OS X, and of course Linux, can all access foreign file formats, Windows has purposely not allowed that access to the end the user. This has stalled acceptance of other, BETTER file systems for portable drives. If you want to transfer files by HD. You basically need to format FAT32. You need to Speak the "Windows" file system language.
If this goes through, that could and should change. Third party manufacturers would have to adopt an OSS filesystem, and create a driver for Windows to access it. - sq377, on 02/26/2009, -0/+13a ton of removable devices use them (mp3 players, etc). To drop support for this entirely would be quite a blow to linux interoperability. Also from what I hear for embedded systems FAT is incredibly simple to implement... especially when you look at other filesystems.
Speaking of which, the DMCA allows reverse engineering for interoperability... shouldn't this be covered? - Megatog615, on 02/26/2009, -1/+14Think of it this way: MP3 player(or whatever) manufacturers would use EXT2(or something) and include a driver disk to use it.
- bjornski, on 02/26/2009, -0/+13Nevermind, I'm not full of coffee yet...
- lordmike, on 02/26/2009, -0/+12The patent does not apply to normal FAT, only to the filename extensions in VFAT... FAT was way to old for them to actually patent...
- secrity, on 02/26/2009, -0/+12Many devices use removable Flash media, such as SD, which comes formatted with FAT32. The use of FAT32 on removal Flash media allows compatibility with Windows devices.
- adderx99, on 02/26/2009, -4/+16Read the article though. While its not known if MS is suing specifically over dosfstools. it seems pretty likely. The problem with this is if MS wins in court over this, there is nothing stopping MS from having some major ammunition over the linux kernel, and just about every linux distro in general, should they choose to pursue it. Im not saying they might, but this is kind of like giving iran nukes. sure they might not blow everyone up, but do you really want to give them the chance?
package description of dosfstools, which is pretty standard on linux machines:
Version: 2.11-5
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7)
Filename: pool/main/d/dosfstools/dosfstools_2.11-5_amd64.deb
Size: 82094
MD5sum: cd040abe361ae406665ba0c3b6eef4bc
SHA1: cb684505b714fb921a67f7158bd964f0cabc4627
SHA256: d1f62805b82f9ba11871e682ed649609b442a3bd6136b5526fa81cf7d8393b9d
Description: utilities for making and checking MS-DOS FAT filesystems
The dosfstools package includes the mkdosfs (aka mkfs.dos and mkfs.vfat) and
dosfsck (aka fsck.msdos and fsck.vfat) utilities, which respectively make and
check MS-DOS FAT filesystems on hard drives or on floppies.
.
This version uses the enhanced boot sector/superblock format of DOS 3.3+ as
well as provides a default dummy boot sector code. - ldog, on 02/26/2009, -0/+12Copyrighting implementation is what helps to protect developer work.
Patenting software concepts is stupid. - pt4117, on 02/26/2009, -1/+13Remember a couple of years ago a lot of people laughed at Ballmer. http://digg.com/linux_unix/Steve_Ballmer_Hints_Mic ...
It's coming. - staticfire, on 02/26/2009, -6/+18I really dont think bill gates cares about more money
He resigned his position at microsoft and donated portions of his money because he doesnt want the stigma associated with being the richest man in the world
as much as people hate M$ i think bill is a pretty noble guy for many of the things hes done - JQP123, on 02/26/2009, -1/+13"MS waited too long."
"Basically MS let FAT become public domain, and the case will be thrown out."
The issue is patents, not copyrights. And you're obviously making up your own version of the law as you go along. - daftman, on 02/26/2009, -1/+12You can't sue Linux. It's not a corporation, it's a software. Instead you sue corporations that use Linux. This will make others afraid to use Linux.
- mrsteveman1, on 02/26/2009, -0/+10No Microsoft authorizes 3rd parties to do signing, they aren't in any way involved in signing 3rd party drivers themselves.
- Knowltey, on 02/26/2009, -6/+16Yeah MS, let's see how you run without TCP/IP...
- Davidleewhite, on 02/26/2009, -2/+12The Software wars have officially begun..... lets hope this is somewhat entertaining and that Microsoft unleashes the "big guns" and that OIN uses the "nuclear option" ...most intersting thing happening right now except the marijuana legalization story
- nkassi, on 02/26/2009, -0/+9They've got billions to burn until then.
- Ratteler, on 02/26/2009, -0/+9"...only using FAT for removable media if I absolutely have to."
"Duh" much? - mrsteveman1, on 02/26/2009, -1/+10No ZFS is where its at. HFS+ is an old filesystem with ***** bolted on to it to account for changing needs, its still an old unreliable filesystem just like NTFS, just like EXT3. Sure they are journaled but that doesn't mean much unless you yank the thing out while the power is on. Disk failures still go unnoticed until you lose data, especially on USB drives where S.M.A.R.T doesn't work.
- feelmypimphand, on 02/26/2009, -1/+10I agree. I worry our current system will play out like it normally does though.
The company that spends the most amount of $ on attorneys = Win. -
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