Microsoft Litigation vs. Linux NTFS Kernel Support

OrenWolf writes: "Microsoft has threatened to sue the current developers of r/w NTFS support in the Linux Kernel. Details can be found in the current Kernel Traffic post." No, your honor, we aren't a monopoly.

Comments

Not quite as simple as it seems

[Dacta]

I'm not really sure of the details (I don't follow the kernel list), but I'm sure someone can expand on this.

Jeff V. Merkey used to work at Novell on Netware. He then left and went and developed something (a cleanroom NDS?) for a startup that had a fairly close relationship with MS. (I think the idea was MS was going to use this to combat Netware - like I said, I'm hazy on the details.)

Anyway, as part of that, (I think) he got access to the NT code, which means potentially MS might have a case, if he signed NDAs

Summary: Jeff V. Merkey had some prior realtionship with MS, which might give them a case. The rest is just hazy memories - I'll dig and try and remember exactly what was going on.

NTFS code on t-shirts

[jon_adair]

So, when are the t-shirts printed with NTFS code coming out?

Re:NTFS code on t-shirts

[Happy Monkey]

So, when are the t-shirts printed with NTFS code coming out?

When the average person gets significantly fatter.

So we should be seeing them here in the US pretty soon, then?
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(Some) more info

[Dacta]

Okay, Jeff V. Merkey's company, the Timpanogas Research Group is a Microsoft ISV. Now this doesn't mean anything in itself, but some MS ISVs do have access to the NT code.

Here is a (google cached) post about some problems Merkey had with his open source NDS implementation - Novell wanted him to sign a NDA.

Read this:

The fact that he is working closely with Microsoft and a contributing to Open Source/Linux make TRG a legitimate threat. We may have NDS for NT and Linux, and are working with Caldera and Red Hat, but how are we going to walk that tight-rope of "seeding" NDS into Linux/Open Source market? Are we just going to wait for TRG to put Novell's NDS and NWFS "crown jewels" out as Open Source?

and this:

Jeff and David Gobel (wrote NTFS for MS, now consulting) can create a filter driver for ACL and Trustee management. This will work for NTFS and W2000 (completely new files system and disk structures). That would fill the gap for NDS for NT. Linux would actually be easier to implement. Then NDS would manage data on NT and Linux.

Now if this David Gobel person really did write "NTFS for MS", and now he has some kind of relationship with Merkey, Merkey's company or Linux, there could be a problem.

Also, read http://www.zd net .com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011,2426902,00.html for some more background (okay, it's ZdNet, so don't take it too seriously!)

Of course, I still don't know the details - just enough to annoy some people if I've got it all wrong!

Wrong.

[jpl]

Jeff Merkey is the head of a for-profit company, Timpaganos (or some such thing). There was some agreement between his company and M$, the exact nature of which I don't know.
<p>

When Jeff said, "Microsoft has threatened us with litigation due to our support of Linux NTFS development" the <b>us</b> he was referring to was his company, not <i>linux</i> proper.
<p>

Jeff was giving people a binary NTFS tool to help people recover their file systems after they got damaged by some bugs in the linux NTFS drivers. This is probably what Jeff is referring to when he says, "Microsoft demanded that we delete any and all NTFS tools we had been providing to customers..."
<p>

Micro$oft is NOT threatening linux. M$ is NOT trying to have the NTFS driver removed from linux proper. This is not clear in the linuxcare article, but is clear if you followed all of Jeff's (sometimes logic-challenged) posts. One final note, you have to mentally tone down posts from Jeff, he tends to be <understatement> overly dramatic </understatement> and has a strange combative/cooperative cycle of posts.

Whats the problem?

[Lion-O]

Frankly I don't think MS is at fault here. If you take a closer look at the first paragraph: we have dissolved our NTFS licensing agreements with Microsoft in response to their demands that cease to support Linux development. Microsoft demanded that we delete any and all NTFS tools we had been providing to customers based on their intellectual property.

The article itself states that they asked MS for a license which allowed them to use the NTFS specs. An fs which was completely stolen^H^Hdeveloped by MS :) But thats not the issue; iirc MS has licensed NTFS and they own the specs. If you want to use it in another way then accessing the available NT routines you'll need a licence. Like it or not; thats MS decision and you can only respect it.

The way I see it these folks decided to break the agreement (see quote) and therefor also threw away their right to make use of the MS specifications and routines which allowed them to access the NTFS internals. So? Is MS evil just because they are defending their product here? Sure, MS usually takes actions which are highly controversial, their development of NTFS is right among those IMHO (remember hpfs?). But that does not mean that every action taken by MS is evil/monopolistic/unfair/dictating/ by default. Besides, please do not forget that we only see 1 side of the story here. We didn't even get to see the entire letter send by MS.

Anyway; these people should stop whining IMHO. If they want to develop NTFS based programs and don't want to be restricted by the will of MS they should do what other did before them; buy the appropiate MS development tools which gives them the right to use the NTFS specs in their own software. Whether that software is Linux or Windows based is irrelevant.

Umm...

[WzDD]

There is misinformation here - the current Linux support for NTFS is nothing to do with Jeff Merkey or his company. AFAIK Microsoft has not sent any such threats to the developers of the Linux driver.

Reference: Linux NTFS page