Screw you Linux Freeloaders! Pay the man!

[Winnow]

Microsoft FAT patents valid, Linux quivers

Ruling threatens open source

THE US Patent and Trademark Office has declared that patents Microsoft holds on file allocation tables (FAT) are valid, opening up the question once more on how Linux will be affected.
The Linux OS uses the FAT file system.

Microsoft had faced opposition from the Public Patent Foundation to rule the patents invalid, but the US Patent Office said that the patent techniques are new and non obvious.

Florian Mueller, a noted campaigner against no software patents, said: "This is now a situation in which Microsoft could cause major problems to Linux vendors and users. Microsoft may not want to do that yet... but it gives Microsoft the strategic option to do so at a time of its choosing."

He continued that the US Patent Office and the European Patent Office continue to grant new patents to Microsoft daily. "Some of them may be equally dangerous to open source as the fat patents." µ

[Aruman]

He continued that the US Patent Office and the European Patent Office continue to grant new patents to Microsoft daily. "Some of them may be equally dangerous to open source as the fat patents." µ

Dangerous to open source? I'd say MS is just trying to protect it's intellectual property.

If anyone but MS had the patents, it wouldn't be made to sound like a conspiracy.

[Zaelath]

Linux doesn't "use" FAT, it has drivers that allow you to mount it R/W so you can share data between your Windows system and your Linux system.

Most people, and 99.9% of businesses wouldn't give a rat-ass if they removed FAT.

[Aabidano]

Depends on the language of the patent I'd guess. Whether they patented the concept or their implementation of it.

[Voronwë]

yeah as others said, i havent seen any linux distro that will install to a FAT partition.

it is ext2 (i think) that Linux (at least RH, slack, and debian the last time i installed any of those...awhile ago) uses.

Plus who gives a shit about data on FAT32 disks anymore?

any Windows install that is even marginally important has to be on NTFS by now.

[Winnow]

yeah as others said, i havent seen any linux distro that will install to a FAT partition.

it is ext2 (i think) that Linux (at least RH, slack, and debian the last time i installed any of those...awhile ago) uses.

Plus who gives a shit about data on FAT32 disks anymore?

any Windows install that is even marginally important has to be on NTFS by now.

Apple's approach is to use microdrives – miniature hard drives just like the ones in your laptop. The top of the line video iPod sports a 60GB drive – more storage than many laptops on the market. While this is a relatively sound approach (again, no pun intended), for reasons known only to God, Apple uses a FAT file system format on the iPod's hard drive.

Pay up!

[Kylere]

Hmm I have a FAT32 drive that I use on a dual boot machine, but to be honest I do not need it, I can just network it and SMB it.

[Voronwë]

kylere you boot linux out of FAT32?

and iPod's don't run Linux Winnow...

i bet i know why iPods do run FAT32. because ALL possible customers have OS that will write to FAT32.

except those running PDP-11's


OS agnostic, remember?

[Winnow]

and iPod's don't run Linux Winnow...

Yeah, but they're still using FAT.

I don't see the big deal with this anyway as linux can use ext2 or ext3. NTFS is patented by Microsoft as well.

[Kylere]

Nonono Voronwe " I have a FAT32 drive that I use on a dual boot machine"
not that I boot from it, I have a ext3 and a swap and a NTFS partition on C and D is a FAT32 drive

[Tenuvil]

post the source of this please Winnow? it couldn't really be from /. or any other reputable source.

The logic behind MS going after Linux for this is as sound as MS going after say, Lotus, because the install media that Notes comes on uses the FAT file system.

Aside from that no Linux distros I've seen that are worth a damn can possibly be installed to a FAT partition. Modern distros use ext3 or a journaling file system that has more in common with Unix than DOS.

[Boogahz]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060111-5959.html

Not the post he quoted, but another I found pretty quickly.

[Winnow]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060111-5959.html

Not the post he quoted, but another I found pretty quickly.

Nice Boogahz,

That's worth quoting : )

The EET has a quick survey of reactions to the decision from various analysts and open source folks, so go check it out if you're in need of a quick downer. In short, things don't look good, and it all depends on what Microsoft plans to do with the patents.

Eben Moglen, general counsel of the Free Software Foundation, had said if Microsoft was successful in licensing the patents, it could add "millions of dollars annually to consumers' expenses for digital photo storage, and (raise) the cost of digital cameras throughout the world."

The patent decision could represent a proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging over the open source community, because Microsoft could, at least in theory, seek royalties for Linux. Microsoft has given no indication it plans to use the patents against the open source community.

For some time now Moglen has been making dramatic predictions about the end of Linux if these patents get upheld, so I guess we'll find out if he's right.

As of this past December, Microsoft has already gone after a host of device makers that use FAT. Microsoft's FAT File System Technology License lists the types of devices that the company intends to license at a rate of US$0.25 per unit or up to $250,000:

A license for removable solid state media manufacturers-These manufacturers can pre-format the media to the Microsoft FAT file system format, such as with compact flash memory cards, and then preload data onto the pre-formatted media using the Microsoft FAT file system format. Pricing for this license is US$0.25 per unit with a cap on total royalties of $250,000 per manufacturer.
A license for manufacturers of certain consumer electronics devices-Pricing for this license is $0.25 per unit for each of the following types of devices that use removable solid state media to store data:
Portable digital still cameras
Portable digital video cameras
Portable digital still/video cameras
Portable digital audio players
Portable digital video players
Portable digital audio and video players
Multifunction printers
Electronic photo frames
Electronic musical instruments
Standard televisions
I think Microsoft would be crazy not to hit Linux with these patents, so watch that licensing page for a whopper of an update any day now. I'd love for someone to talk me out of that notion, though. Any takers?

Pay up Apple!

Fameen, sell your APPL and then place a buy order @68. You'll get your shares back in a few weeks. Easy money after hype buildup before and during CES and Macworld events.

[Tenuvil]

I still don't buy it.

The media that Linux CD ROMs and ISOs come on is not FAT but rather CDFS or ISO 9660 CDROM format, which is not FAT. I can see the CF and digital camera vendors having to pay royalties, but not Linux vendors (or "Linux" itself, whatever that may be in a distributed open source model). There's nothing about Linux that explicity, or implicitly, uses the FAT file system.

[Fash]

Well don't blame Winnow for knowing nothing about Linux....

Apple can easily pay out $250k.. so can Creative.

What manufacturer is going to have an issue with losing $0.25 per unit with a cap of 1 million units?... none of them!

[Winnow]

Well don't blame Winnow for knowing nothing about Linux....

He's the kid with the blanket

Apple can easily pay out $250k.. so can Creative.

That's all I ask!

[Ogbar]

Wow, VxWorks (a leader in the real time, embedded OS world) still bundles support only for FAT, if memory serves me. This could get interesting (though Wind River may already have some deal in place with MS).