any thoughts?

http://news.com.com/Microsofts+file+...3-6025447.html

-J

J wrote:

> any thoughts?
>

Those bastards!

>
http://news.com.com/Microsofts+file+...3-6025447.html
>
> -J

J wrote:

> any thoughts?
>
>
http://news.com.com/Microsofts+file+...3-6025447.html
>
> -J

Patents are valid for what, 25 years? When did DOS come out ~1981.

Ian

On 2006-02-10, Ian Bell <ruffrecords@yahoo.com> wrote:
> J wrote:
>
>> any thoughts?
>>
>>
> http://news.com.com/Microsofts+file+...3-6025447.html
>>
>> -J
>
> Patents are valid for what, 25 years? When did DOS come out ~1981.
>
> Ian

Yeah, don't know..but if the patent is upheld they can force all those oss
people who made progs that used FAT in their work...I think that's the idea.

ken

J <notavailable@local> wrote:
: any thoughts?

: http://news.com.com/Microsofts+file+...3-6025447.html

The worse case scenario I can see is that the vfat and fat options would be
taken out of the basic distribution to suite the legal suits, but that the
ability to add those filesystems onto a base system will be left open. So
that the user could go download the appropriate code off some international
website and add the filesystem support on their own. This of course being a
worst case scenario, but we've seen similar techniques employed in the past
to get around similar legal issues. The ramifications of course would be a
lack of fat/vfat support "out of the box", which might be an obstacle for
other distributions' user bases, but shouldn't be much of a problem for the
typical Slackware user who is not afraid to go out and compile their own
add-ons to the base system.

Another alternative is some enterprising young company will pay Microsoft
the royalty fees then either offer for free or for a small fee the fat/vfat
filesystem packages for a variety of operating systems. If they go the free
route, they could probably make a decent living off advertising revenue
unless Microsoft charges outlandish royalties. This would still allow the
base Linux distributions to not contain any royalty encumbered code while
giving the users an "ease of use" factor since they won't have to compile
anything by hand. From the distribution's standpoint, it would be no
different than adding nVidia drivers or any other bit of proprietary add-on
software to the system. It would be an additional hurdle for the users, but
we already have similar methods for using Microsoft code on Linux such as
Wine, Cedega, CrossOver Office and so forth.

On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 22:55:44 GMT, No_One <no_one@no_where.com> wrote:

>Yeah, don't know..but if the patent is upheld they can force all those oss
>people who made progs that used FAT in their work...I think that's the idea.

FAT is in public domain, msft trying to protect vfat (FAT32) long
filenames in all those USB gadgets. Not impact OSS, from discussions
on lkml when this came up some months ago. (FAT32 came out with Win95)

Grant.
--
.... The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
"Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"

On 2006-02-11, Grant <bugsplatter@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 22:55:44 GMT, No_One <no_one@no_where.com> wrote:
>
>>Yeah, don't know..but if the patent is upheld they can force all those oss
>>people who made progs that used FAT in their work...I think that's the idea.
>
> FAT is in public domain, msft trying to protect vfat (FAT32) long
> filenames in all those USB gadgets. Not impact OSS, from discussions
> on lkml when this came up some months ago. (FAT32 came out with Win95)

Hmmmm...you're probably right. Didn't know FAT was public domain...I just
always assumed it was an MS thingie.

ken

"Grant" <bugsplatter@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:akbqu158d2ukm43h432qp4vemap1qs0sj5@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 22:55:44 GMT, No_One <no_one@no_where.com> wrote:
>
>>Yeah, don't know..but if the patent is upheld they can force all those oss
>>people who made progs that used FAT in their work...I think that's the
>>idea.
>
> FAT is in public domain, msft trying to protect vfat (FAT32) long
> filenames in all those USB gadgets. Not impact OSS, from discussions
> on lkml when this came up some months ago. (FAT32 came out with Win95)
>
> Grant.
> --
> ... The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
> "Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"

I am install XP on 98 machine so I delete and reformat hard drive as FAT32
then install XP.

It copied it onto drive and then it check itself and decide it am fucked and
spend long time fixing itself a lot til I got bored and phone up Russian
mate who turn off gas supply so power station stop working and computer can
reboot. Then use NTFS system.

Is patented too? Must be fucked also.

On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 01:20:44 GMT, No_One <no_one@no_where.com> wrote:

> Didn't know FAT was public domain...I just
>always assumed it was an MS thingie.

I came to ms-dos from cp/m, FAT is modified cp/m filesystem, and
IBM froze sector size at 512 bytes.

On disk directory entries very similar, plus other dos-like OS
decades ago used the same (compatible) FAT on-disk format without
issues.

Grant.
--
.... The computer scientist, who had listened to all of this said,
"Yes, but where do you think the chaos came from?"

On 2006-02-11, Grant <bugsplatter@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 11 Feb 2006 01:20:44 GMT, No_One <no_one@no_where.com> wrote:
>
>> Didn't know FAT was public domain...I just
>>always assumed it was an MS thingie.
>
> I came to ms-dos from cp/m, FAT is modified cp/m filesystem, and
> IBM froze sector size at 512 bytes.
>
> On disk directory entries very similar, plus other dos-like OS
> decades ago used the same (compatible) FAT on-disk format without
> issues.

I don't know as much as I thought I did.

ken