computerworlduk.com — Samba's Jeremy Allison says it's all about forcing TomTom either to violate the GPL or to switch from Linux to Microsoft's embedded software - and that this isn't the first time a company has had to choose.
Mar 5, 2009 View in Crawl 4
jqp123Mar 6, 2009
"Patent and Copyright laws were never intended to protect vendor lock-in."Regardless of intent, patents do exist. And to my knowledge, there are no legal exceptions as to when or why they may be enforced."... but the credibility of those patents is very shaky..."But apparently not shaky enough for the patents to be overturned. If I'm not mistaken, these patents were challenged by the Public Patent Foundation and after a lengthy review, upheld by the patent office.
fratzMar 6, 2009
Windows doesn't need a native EXT3 driver if TomTom makes an app that formats an SD card as EXT3 and sticks their map pack (or the customer's music) on it.
stubearMar 6, 2009
You;re right, TomTom hasn't violated MS's copyrights. TomTom has been accused of violating MS patents. When are you f**knuts going to bother to learn a thing or two about intellectual property before posting on digg?
inc595Mar 6, 2009
This account has been closed by the user
tnoyMar 6, 2009
The ext2/3 drivers out there for Windows machines are unreliable and buggy.Why bundle special sync software and a driver when you can just use the SD card itself, or the device as a mass storage device? Ease of use wins customers, having the user jump through hoops is going to show up as a "con" in every review.Or you could just bend over and let Microsoft bully you.
havocxphereMar 6, 2009
Lulz. The poor MS vs EU legal eagles probably $%^& themselves when they saw this got out.Serves them right. Making Open/Interoperability PR noises and then running a cloak&dagger extortion racket under NDAs.>>So why can't tomtom just use ext2/3 instead?The FAT part is probably needed to make the devices more Windows USB friendly.
jqp123Mar 6, 2009
"Windows doesn't need a native EXT3 driver if TomTom makes an app that formats an SD card as EXT3 and sticks their map pack (or the customer's music) on it."Yes, that may be a possibility but an extra specialized app just for data fransfer would tend to complicate the interface process. As I alluded to above, this would be a marketing dis-advantage for TomTom in comparison to others and likely make their devices less popular.
chupatumamaMar 7, 2009
This is by far the most important part of the article:"It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If Tom Tom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel) they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel *at all*.Microsoft has been going around and doing these patent cross licensing deals with companies under NDA's so they never come to light for *years*. "And NDA does not give you the right to break a license. And Im not even sure you can enforce it when its made to hide something like this.I guess the Eben Moglen and the lawyers at the SFLC are gonna have to take a look at who has been breaking the GPL2.
balaknairMar 8, 2009
Maybe the problem with MS is it doesn't need another assh**e. It's got the biggest one on the block as chairman already. No way can Google or anyone else create a bigger one, unless they maybe get Dick Cheney to join the MS board.
rockleemanMar 19, 2010
yea... <a class="user" href="http://www.myideason.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.myideason.com</a>