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Microsoft to Charge for FAT File System
pario writes "According to Microsoft, the Redmond company is going to charge a license fee for any product that is formatted in FAT by the manufacturer. Any manufacturer of compact flash memory cards or digital cameras may end up paying Microsoft as much as $250,000 for the use of the file format. The FAT File System is covered by several US patents."
Litigation: The Business Model of the Future!(TM)
(Disclaimer: The above statement is the intellectual property of Uberm00 Corp. and may not be used without prior written permission.)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Gotta love submarine patents.
Is there a win32 ext2/3 filesystem driver out there anywhere?
What if you just sell the cards and usb sticks unformatted and have it formatted under windows? That way you could evade this kind extortion?
The end of FAT as a file system..
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Failure to litigate...
heh...
no seriously, FAT was convenient and fairly standard.. all microsoft is going to do is drive manufacturers to other (hopefully free software) schemes.... That's when we all win! THANKS MICROSOFT!
Whats going on here, they cant want more money, are they just trying to kill FAT and push NTFS or what?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
So M$ bank account is going to get even FAT'er.
If they charge people, then they have to support it.
I'll bring them my broken SD-card directories so that they fix their bugs.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Hm...since Apple's Disk Utility will let you format pretty much any writable media in FAT, will Apple have to pay Microsoft for that privilege? Will they choose to do so, or will they drop the ability?
Note to manufacturers: this will make your Mac formatted media actually cheaper to produce, so even if you don't give the consumer a discount, that's just one more reason to continue to produce Mac-compatible product...
--
$tar -xvf
How many of us use a fat partition on their home computers? Since the drives cant be larger than 7.8GB, how many people does this really affect?
How is Microsoft going to know what format the device is in without breaking the DMCA?
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
If this is the sign of a starting trend, the trend being to use patents to build a revenue stream at the cost of a more open tech. industry, we're in for a rocky road.
-or so you'd think
I see nothing wrong with it. They own the patents, so they have the right to sell it to whoever pays. BTW, slashdot post is a bit misleading.
"Pricing for this license is US$0.25 per unit with a cap on total royalties of $250,000 per licensee."
The $250K is the cap; that means, that is the maximum amount they will charger per license holder for the use of the FAT. Just thought it came across incorrectly.
A blog like any other.
All four listed patents deal with the problem of having both short and long file names. None of my digital cameras use long file names.
The point why I think such a scheme is totally fucked and dishonest is not the fact that such patents exist, but because of the following business model:
1. Create valuable idea
2. Wait until it's a defacto standard 3. PROFIT !!! (no ??? required)It looks more and more like RMS is a true visionary.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Great! So my next digital camera will use ReiserFS!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This will probably make MS a little money, until the embedded industry moves en masse to a free file format. If they do, the file formats for PDA's et al move away from MS's (FAT) standard - something that mas long-term repercussions for MS.
The profit margin isn't that great on PDA's et al as it is - why would the industry want to cede a further chunk of that margin to MS? All you'd have to do is include a driver for a free file format with the PDA cradle, card reader, and/or desktop application.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
All manufacturers will grumble (some louder than others), pay up the money and then add an additional $5-$10 on their products to compensate for this licence.
I'm wondering though, if they supplied the products unformatted, would that still mean they have to pay the licence? Upon insertion, Windows would helpfully offer to format the drive for you and then you'd be ready to go.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
should have developed their own file system. so.. is that hard? are there any free file systems? what does linux use? does a specialist device need the full fuctionality (don't scoff, geeks) of something like FAT?
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Thickheadedness helps the process of moving away entrenched companies. And this case is no different. MS is still very much entrenched, no doubt about that. But hardware manufacturers are now that much more likely to support other standards and filesystems (like ext3) natively, and perhaps as their primary system.
They'll get away with this because they're big enough. And they'll make some money. But this, and similar practices, will work against them in the long run.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The first FAT file system was developed by Microsoft in 1976. That system was based on the BASIC programming language and allowed programs and data to be stored on a floppy disk. Since that time, the FAT file system has been improved upon multiple times to take advantage of advances in computer technology, and to further refine and enrich the FAT file system itself.
Today, the FAT File system has become the ubiquitous format used for interchange of media between computers, and, since the advent of inexpensive, removable flash memory, also between digital devices. The FAT file system is now supported by a wide variety of operating systems running on all sizes of computers, from servers to personal digital assistants. In addition, many digital devices such as still and video cameras, audio recorders, video game systems, scanners, and printers make use of FAT file system technology.
Microsoft is offering to license its FAT file system specification and associated intellectual property. With this license, other companies have the opportunity to standardize the FAT file system implementation in their products, and to improve file system compatibility across a range of computing and consumer electronics devices.
Nice guys. Create a standard, realize its being used for a lot of devices after 27 years, see the chance for even more money you don't need, and then charge for it.
It's not worth 250k for a license. We had to use it in devices to remain compatible with an OS that was forced upon us.
Give me a break.
They have several patents. They are charging for their intellectual property. If your beef is fundamentally with the patent system, that's fine, but don't take it out on Microsoft. They are a company which has a legal obligation to their shareholders, and they are doing something well within the law to achieve that.
Remember that this isn't someone just trying to cash in specifically on FAT, this is one part of a program to expand their licensing available. Many companies are probably quite happy about this - shifting from usage of FAT being shakey legal ground to solid legal ground & a known factor.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
I must be missing something here....
How can they enforce this, if memory cards/sticks for cameras have been doing this for years now? If they haven't be pursuing the patents enfringement before this, can they now?
What about pre-formatted floppies?
Sounds like a great way for Microsoft to force people to switch to an alternate filesystem.
This just doesn't make too much sense to me, although not a lot does when it comes to companies choosing to use litigation as a business practice.
What I can now imagine if this goes through is that there will be class-action lawsuits to force driver support in all Microsoft products for the filesystems the manufacturers switched to because they didn't want to pay royalty fee's to Microsoft.
Way to go Microsoft! At this rate everyone will hate you not just the Linux Zealots!
Future Royalties!
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
I thought Digital Research was the company that had developed the FAT system?
Any manufacturer of compact flash memory cards or digital cameras may end up paying Microsoft as much as $250,000 for the use of the file format.
If you RTFA you'd see that they want $0.25 per device. At that rate you'd have to sell 1 million devices and after that the royalties are capped.
Perfectly reasonable really. They do own the technology after all.
Is it unreasonable to think that the logical next step is for MS to demand payments from any and all developers of software written to run on the Windows platform? Can a Windows application run without needing to access or use any patented Windows code?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This will effectively end Linux support of FAT. While only 25 cents per unit, any amount is too much for us Linux users.
FAT lacks the multiuser support and file permission support of our superiour Ext2 so they shouldn't trouble you or me, comrades.
Linky, although it's not exactly a driver.
More likely we'll start seing unformatted drives and memory sticks/cards all over the place.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Why can't we all just use Minux for floppy disks and tell MSFT to get fucked in the head?
The earliest versions of the FAT file systems were around in 1981. (Actually probably 1979 or 1980 if you count Seattle Computer's QDOS). Those patents must've expired by now, right? Or does Microsoft get a perpetual patents the same way Disney gets perpetual copyrights?
Does this mean the Linux kernel will be dropping FAT support? And BSD for that matter?
I wonder to what extent this has to be "going forward." I can't imagine a judge allowing M$ to let FAT become so ubiquitous only to charge royalties later. In fact, they may have already lost the ability to charge such a royalty.
wow people post to slashdot fast :o. a dozen posts probably covered those thoughts in the minute it took me to write that. ill just crawl back into my hole lol.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Time to fight the power, kill off the Corporate-patent-sucking-pond scum. Let's get back to our inner-city protest youth and show them what we're about.
:-D )
I hearby declare the OS declaration of independence that shalled be led by the PHAT file system.
(Yeah, way too long a wind up for a mediocre joke at best.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
MICROS~1.WRD SHOULD BE ABLE TO CHARGE WHAT THEY WANT TO. THEY OWN THE COPYRI~1.WRD AND INTELL~1.WRD PROPER~1.WRD TO THE FAT FILE SYSTEM. HOW DO STORIES LIKE THIS GET IN SLASHD~1.WRD ANYWAY? LEAVE MICROS~2.WRD ALONE.
how many people does this really affect?
It isn't used on home computers only, it is also used in digital cameras and compact flash memory cards, who this is going to affect more. These have have much smaller disk spaces (currently, at least). So, it is going to affect more people than you think.
aterr - an open source threaded discussion board.
one would assume that it stretches to fat32..
fat is still used quite regularly on removable media that has to be used on different computers..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
http://ext2.yeah.net
I don't think the storage manufacturers have that much to worry about, as they can ship the media unformatted. The device manufacturers on the other hand may be the ones who end up shelling out the dough.
-- Charles A. Plater
Perhaps now we'll see manufacturers adding [ext2/3/your favorite flavour of a fs] to their products.
Esp with camera's gaining support for the picture tranfer protocol (PTP), they are becomming more and more filesystem agnostic. Other devices may as well...
the pun is mightier than the sword
Can they enforce their patents in Europe ? What will be the consequence for Euro-based device manufacturers ?
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Today, the FAT File system has become the ubiquitous format used for interchange of media between computers, and, since the advent of inexpensive, removable flash memory, also between digital devices.
Microsoft must have allowed companies to use FAT for some reason. They wouldn't want to create a monopoly would they?
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
Something tells me they won't get away with it...whether that be legally, or all of us going on a witch hunt.
clifgriffin > blog
Where do you get your information? That number is inaccurate:
NTFS, FAT, FAT32
A blog like any other.
It's not like Microsoft even invented the format...
Was MS-DOS not simply a legal (bought) copy of QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System)? IANAPA (not a patent atorney) so I cannot get through all the legalese, RTF patents and actually understand them, but could it be possible that a lot of the stuff in these patents has prior art in the QDOS file system (FAT12 IIRC)?
Not trolling here, I am simply curious.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
If you developed a technology that's used around the world and is a near-ubiquitous format, wouldn't you license it?
MS would be insane not to charge royalties. The FAT filesystem, unlike many technology patents, is a "real" piece of intellectual property, just like compuserve's GIF file format and the LZW compression algorithm.
Of *course* they're going to license it! As a MSFT shareholder, I'd be rather upset if they DIDN'T license it!
Everyone here is so quick to bash MS... even when they make a good business decision.
Guess it's time to change to Amiga FFS2.0...
Right now everyone's media is pre-formated in FAT -- a filesystem that has been around so long and is so simple that just about every operating system on the planet can read it. If MS starts charging for people to use FAT maybe everyone will simply invent their own file system and force windows users to install a driver in order to be able to read the new media. It may take awhile for the new filesystem to be ported to linux. Maybe in the near future you won't be able to use the latest digital camera with a linux system because linux can't read the filesystem that the camera uses. Also what if each digital camera company invents their own filesystem? Maybe cameras from Cannon will work under linux but not cameras from Sony? At the very least if they have to pay money to use FAT then they will no doubt pass the cost on to the consumer which means we will pay an MS tax just to use any preformatted media.
Eric S. Raymond predicted that Microsoft would force the patent issue on its file formats in The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
This is very worrying. Let's hope MS didn't get this idea from there.
While I support ESR, I can't help but wonder if outlining Linux's strengths provides M$ with a plan of attack on Linux.
I want a quarter everytime somebody says the word "FAT".
One of you nice folks show me to the "everyone's using it now, so I'll screw them" dept please. It's been long enough that I've been getting taken advantage of. Those leeching bastards.
So much material to work with, yet so few funnies...
"Steve Ballmer is all about the FAT!"
"Windows - with a PHAT File System!"
"Microsoft: FAT With Greed"
"Linux: Avoid the FAT"
i'm not a linux user but doesn't that have horrible implications for dual boot setups? where two OSes have to access the same files...
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Using a different filesystem is an all well and good way of avoiding that payment to microsoft, however these people will now have to write a device driver for windows to support the new format. This means that the flash storage industry now has to install software in order to use the devices, which makes less attractive for the consumer. Manufacturers are going to buckle to Microsoft just to maintain the ease of use.
Just another example of how Microsoft is leveraging it's monopoly of the desktop OS market to pressure other companies into paying them. When people bought floppies, Microsoft probably encouraged the manufacturers to have them Pre-Formatted FAT. Then again, that probably predates the confirmed monopoly.
I do not believe this is a big surprise move by MS. They are, after all, the devil :-)
But seriously, I have wondered for a long time how long RedHat and other companies would get away wiht providing tools that help people transition to Linux. Such as the tools that mount ntfs or fat filesystems. Microsoft knows nothing of the spirit of cooperation as proven by the way they treat their business "partners." Instead of working together to achieve something great as in a partnership, Microsoft waits til they think its profittable and normally competes head to head with their partners by buying out one of their competitors.
Now, in the same fashon, they will charge for something that was free. Compnaies are hooked into using the FAT filesystem. And, like a drug dealer, they start charging for the drugs that keeps the user flying high now that they are hooked by the first freebies.
Intelligent companies will figure a way to not be exploited by MS. Of course, if they were intelligent, they should have seen this coming from MS.
Since the drives cant be larger than 7.8GB, how many people does this really affect?
FAT32 can support drives much, much larger than that.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Thanks to royalties on the .GIF format after years of being royalty free, the .JPEG REALLY, and I mean REALLY took off, plus PNG came about as well. Lots of programs dropped .GIf support completely and I didn't blame them. Maybe this will make another standard take precedence on new camera's and flash devices, $250k is a HUGE price to pay for a little startup trying to push a new product
They didn't file any till 1995. Kinda clever, really - don't even bother patenting it untill you see if it's going to be popular. All the benefits of the submarine patent, but without the up front patent fee!
Liquid.
Today, the FAT File system has become the ubiquitous format used for interchange of media between computers.
...
...
Microsoft is offering to license its FAT file system specification and associated intellectual property. With this license, other companies have the opportunity to standardize the FAT file system implementation in their products.
If you are interested in obtaining a license, please contact...
(my emphasis added)
You know, they don't have any of the usual SCO-style 'people are using our property without paying us' gripe. I think they're just selling the right to use their specification, not insisting that everybody pays up or get sued.
Well not yet anyway...
foo mane padme hum
Is there a win32 ext2/3 filesystem driver out there anywhere?
Forget that -- there is FAT code in the Linux kernel. More IP that smacks Linux and means that it cannot be distributed (and interoperate with windows, as FAT-based systems were the only major filesystem that both Linux and Windows can read and write out-of-box. Very bad juju.
FWIW, it is *damned* hard to write Windows filesystem drivers -- compare a small Linux filesystem -- RAMFS, at 342 lines of source -- with even a minimal Windows driver. There is an ext2 implementation with read support, though.
Oh, yes. The embedded community uses FAT all over the place. They are going to absolutely go bonkers when this hits the news.
May we never see th
Daimler-Benz is considering charging automobile manufacturers for the use of its patented Automobile concept. Under this scheme, every car manufacturer will be required to pay a licence fee of $1,499 for each vehicle sold since 1893. Furthermore, the McAdam estate representatives have declared they may charge road builders for using the technique decribed by Mr McAdam in the mid 19th century, an invention that hasn't benefited the estate's shareholders as much as the law allows.
Litigation against aerospace industries for unfair competition and loss of revenue is pending.
Officials at SCO said they didn't know whether they would litigate against the transport industry as a whole, but "they certainly owe us a lot of money, and we're in the process of determining the amount" declared a top executive, who refused to explain the object of the prospective lawsuit, adding that SCO "will inform its partners of its new business plan through regular channels such as subpoenas and Utah court orders".
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Yeah, but with "Trusted Computing" MS could probably get their os to check that the device is "Trusted" (that is, that they've paid the dues) before asking.
If the product connected is "Untrusted". Well, just eject it!
hopefully this would create the need in the industry for an open file system standard supported on all os:es..
:p
but thats probably why the cap isn't more than $250.000
and the obligatory joke is:
I for one welcome our FAT overlords
- I choked on the red pill and now I'm stuck in limbo
Can they really charge $.25/unit for preformatted media? I understand charging per device that preformats the media, because that device actually has program code that implements the FAT file system. The media don't implement the algorithms needed to use FAT, they just store a static snapshot of the output of the algorithms. It's like charging users of MS Word a license fee per document.
I claim first use of "Error No. 0B" - or "No. 0B error." It'll be the new ID 10T!
They may be targeting flash memory now, but where does this lead? It could be that flash memory is just a trial run to see if their patent holds. Preformatted floppy disks generally use FAT. How about software that understands FAT, like Linux?
/should/ be overturned since they've never enforced it before (and in fact encouraged it, IIRC). But GIF patents were upheld, so you never know.
Granted, this
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
as far as i know, the ipod uses FAT for it's filesystem, and is why it will appear as a drive when connected via usb/firewire.
many of the other portable mp3 players, do not appear as a drive, and have to use an external utility. the main reason for this is because they do not use the FAT file system.
these patents may well be the reason why the other manufacturers opted out of using FAT.
apple won't be too happy at this, but the ipod sucks so i couldn't care less.
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
If a company does not protect their patents (or trademarks, or licensing) doesn't this weaken their position as far as enforcing said patents (or license or trademarks).
So if MS has turned a blind eye since 1976 (1976? Bill was doing filesystems in 76?) with respect to enforcing their patents, doesn't this put them in a pretty weak position as far as enforcing them?
I seem to recall something similar happening to AT&T with their litigation against the Regents of California. Namely, AT&T didn't enforce their licensing of SVr4 for a period of time and thus effectively became part of the public domain...
Haven't had any hot beverages this morning, so this could have all been one strange dream though...
-- The Genesis project? What's that?
I wonder what this means for Linux/BSD FAT drivers. Microsoft's current licensing scheme seems to apply only to companies that sell pre-formatted storage devices/media with FAT, but surely this has implications for free software.
Hey, if they can't compete on quality and features, why not force their way into the market using patents.
Is just a statement by ms that they do control the world. 250k is incidental for the producers of the product, its just ms starting to say follow me or it can get worse.
And if they can stop a manufacturer from delivering a product such as a USB drive pre-formatted with FAT, then can't they do the same with a pre-formatted floppy disk? For that matter, can't they do the same with a floppy disk that contains software? Anyone who sells PC software on floppies will owe Microsoft money! (There are less today than there were just five years ago, thanks to CD's, but there are still many small businesses out there. I just got a driver on a floppy last week with something I bought).
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
RTFA. (Go ahead, give me the old "You must be new here" - joke. :)
:)
The linked article does not mention home computers. Microsoft wants license fees from:
1) Manufacturers of solid state removeable memory devices
and
2) Manufacturers of certain types of consumer electronics that use the FAT file system:
portable digital still cameras
portable digital video cameras
portable digital still/video cameras
portable digital audio players
portable digital video players
portable digital audio/video players
multifunction printers
electronic photo frames
electronic musical instruments
standard televisions
Do you think you'll ever buy one of those? Then it'll affect you.
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
Let's not forget FAT12.
People still use floppy disks.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
That number was the 'safe' size for a system partition on NT, i'll go get some coffee and come back when my brain is working..
Because they can!
When the original case was brought against MS, the were still very much a software company but looking at them now, Microsoft has become a conglomerate of sorts focusing on software, intellectual property, hardware, gaming, entertainment, internet service, and consulting. If Microsoft has their way, WMA will be the standard music format (every service besides apple) and their video codecs will be used for movies in and out of the theater.
So how long will it be till the justice department takes some real action? I'm assuming not in this administration, which has pandered to corporations more than any presidential administration in modern history. Bush has created a climate where anything goes for big business.
That's why people apply for patents....to get those fat license fees!
(ducks)
what about all those baby boomers with LSD flashbacks stored up in their fat cells. Won't they be unhappy about M$ taking advantage of their (sometimes) youthful indiscretions?
-- Stuart Denny, stuartdenny@hofo.com "Everything is everything"
I think this illustrates nicely the only valid argument in vavour of software patents in good old europe:
"If they can patent crap, we need to patent crap, too! To defend ourselves!"
By means of such patents, the worlds biggest market for electronic products can be blocked (or, rather, turned into a cash cow). Every international vendor has to buy licenses, otherwise they can't sell in the usa.
Seems like this would affect everyone then, would we see a (significant) price increase in the mentioned products?
...please have your credit card and/or other billing methods handy.
Hell, I hope they don't retroactively charge that... Soooo many floppies I've formatted.
Why did the parent get modded Flamebait? If they invented it why shouldnt they expect remuneration?
Pretty much every company expects to capitalise on products/ideas it has come up with, I dont see why this is such big news.
I have no sig yet I must scream.
I thought there were similar filesystems, and besides FAT is so simple, a cleanroom implementation would not take long, hence no need to licence. Commodore, Atari, Apple all had bitmapped sectors predating.. maybe I am missing something.
This one isn't really submarine --- They created FAT in 1976, according to the microsoft.com page ... but the earliest patent was filed in 1995.
That can't possibly be right. In the US (but nowhere else) you have a 1 year's grace period from the time of publishing an invention such that you are still allowed to patent it. Even with the USPTO's track record (!!) I honestly can't see them granting a patent based just on 1976 technology. MS must have included new ideas... or something like that.
Yeah, microsoft must have been smoking a big fattie to think they could come up and charge $250k to manufacturers to use such a shitty filesystem anyways...
- Sell media preformatted with UFS (or whatever), paying no royalty.
- User inserts media into Windows PC.
- Windows PC asks if user wants to format it.
- Microsoft realises that Windows is a piece of software designed to distribute their IP without people paying for it.
- MS sues itself.
Seriously though, this is crazy. If I format a disk of some kind with FAT, and then give it to someone, do I have to pay MS $0.25? Will Longhorn automatically send MS 25 every time you format a floppy with FAT? How much are they going to charge for NTFS?I am TheRaven on Soylent News
This is good. Now maybe the standard will be ext2 o something similiar. MS needs to realize, there are viable alternatives now.
Because it's harder and harder to innovate with respect to hardware, and provide backward compatibility with your existing client base.
.
What's more, each new 'major' release of (Windows at least) doesn't really provide much in the way of 'must-have' capabilities for enterprise customers, who are the bread & butter for companies like microsoft. Adoption of software upgrades since Win2000 have been slow in the market, because . .
Computers and gear tend to work 'well-enough' for most business uses - so sales of new gear has stagnated for several years (though there are signs of a turnaround).
And Free offerings are becoming more and more viable alternatives for forward-thinking organizations.
So Microsoft is really in a bind here - declining sales, difficulty in setting the technological standards that used to grant them monopoly pricing power, and increasingly viable alternatives for customers leave them forced to consider revenue streams such as licensing technology. And to try like hell (witness their latest DRM efforts and attempts to make it a standard that would guarantee them sales and licensing revenues) to use whatever vestiges of their monopoly power to twist a few more years of control out of their franchise.
I mean - the FAT system has been in use since the mid/early 80's, right? And microslut hasn't enforced these patents in all that time.
Isn't there something on the lawbooks about how you must actively defend your patents? 20 years doesn't seem like quite like an expedient patent defense.
MS of the 21st Century: Let us use our monopolistic position to coerce annual upgrades of our poorly coded software. And let us attach additional, arbitrary, illogical licensing fees to small (yet essential) portions of our poorly coded software.
This is a really novel approach for MS to take -- at least it can claim to innovate in the sphere of monopolistic practices. Next they will assign fees for the privilege of using their drivers. Manufacturers will have to use one of the alternate filesystems, which will cause MS to remove compatibility for them.
News Bulletin: MS charges royalties for the use of keyboards and mice with Windows PCs.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
Isn't there a requirement that patent applications be filed within a year of first publication? Microsoft is claiming that FAT was around since 1976. The earliest of these patents was filed in 1992. Seems to me that as long as you formatted things using the file format of 1991's standard FAT, without any enhancements from the patents mentioned, that you'd be okay.
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.ht ml
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
Don't forget Micro$oft'$ trying to convince everyone to go to their up and coming all-secure longhorn system. FAT is "not secure" and is easy to use. On the other hand, maybe they just want to push everyone to a Linux filesystem?
The four patents cited all relate to Microsoft's kludge for shoehorning long file names into a filesystem that can only take 8+3 names. You know, Microsoft -> Micros~1.
First I'm going to get obligatory whinges out of the way. It's ludicrous that this is patentable. The patent is stupidly long and verbose, probably to make this 'innovation' seem more significant than it actually is. The patent is also worded to sound as though this is a useful general idea, rather than something that you'll only ever see in FAT because everyone else is sane enough to just use a better filesystem.
On a more practical note, these patents cover only the long name -> 8.3 stuff. Those digital cameras that write 8.3 names (DSC00001.JPG, DSC00002.JPG, ...) should be fine. Shipping blank but FAT-formatted media should also fall clear of the patent's grasp - the patents don't cover the FAT filesystem itself, just the 'VFAT' Win9x method of fitting long filenames into FAT. Furthermore, the patents seem to cover algorithms for inserting long filenames into the directory tables - implementations that don't write, but only read data, might be okay.
Simple blank FAT, might I add, has been around for at least 17 years, so any patents on it should have expired by now.
Ob-disclaimer: I've only skimmed the patents, and I'm not a lawyer. I'm probably wrong.
Not too many actually. Most of my drives are around 80gigs and I use FreeBSD, however my wifes computer runs Windows 2000 and the drive its installed on is 5gigs with FAT.. so just her I guess.
"What?!? That piece of shit!???!
Sorry, muscle spasm...
OK, so we format it in ISO 9660 and the drivers are written to treat it like a CD-RW. Microsoft just makes companies move to standards. (Or they ship it unformatted, and the users choose how to format it according to their OS of choice.) Put the driver on the device (small ISO 9660 file system) set to auto install, and you're set.
Talk about submarine patents. Floppies have been shipping FAT for *decades*!
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
It seems to me that Microsoft is granting licenses for their FAT code and what-not. They make no mention of not being able to make your own FAT-system (which what everyone has been doing up 'till now).
The only reason you'd really care about this is if you run a large company that makes FAT devices and want to insure that your FAT-system is 100% compatible with specs (which are controlled by Microsoft). Otherwise, you wouldn't care... You'd just look up the well published info already available for free on the 'net.
/dev/random
That brings forward an interesting detail: filesystems for flash-memory devices should be optimized to avoid writing often to the same memory area (the FAT for example) because the memory position may fail after a few thousand writes to the same position, or is this taken care at the memory controller level and the filesystem need not to care?
...
It may be the case that one FS is more or less adequate for flash devices given this restriction holds true
The article states:
Microsoft is offering to license its FAT file system specification and associated intellectual property. With this license, other companies have the opportunity to standardize the FAT file system implementation in their products, and to improve file system compatibility across a range of computing and consumer electronics devices.
This indicates to me that MS is not pulling a patent enforcement trick here, but rather just offering manufacturers the opportunity to work with the official MS FAT specifications, reference source code, and test specifications. The idea being that manufacturers will be able to improve the performance/interoperability of their devices.
I didn't sense any hint of force in the article.
If you go to http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/cleartype. asp They still trying to license ClearType. I thought that was based on old Apple II technologies (discussed some time back on /.).
To recoup the losses they are taking in the gaming market, thier xbox division is bleeding money and this holiday isn't looking to rosy for them either. You cannot sustain a gaming console on pc ports and fps's forever. The lack of Japanese support doesn't help much either. I really don't see them going beyond an xbox2 if at all.
Ubuntu- Linux for human beings.
Ummmm... I use FAT partitions in excess of 60GB. I do so because it is supported by all the OS's I use.
Along the same lines, I'd like to have some verification that de Icaza is not setting Ximian or Gnome up to be taken down by submarine patents at some future date. So far I've not heard anything other than vague verbal assurances that it's been taken care of or that some non-distinct vocal noises from Chairman Bill have been interpreted as "A-OK". "Taken care of" can be interpreted in too many ways.
Back to FAT. I think that everyone now recognizes that Enron^H^H^H^H^HMicrosoft has entered the final phase of the death spiral and that the accounting discrepancies can no longer be hidden. We'll see even more litigation and cancelled products and services before the end. We'll also see more fines for failed security, false advertising, back taxes and anti-competitive practices. C'mon. For years, the only profit has been from MS-Windows and MS-Office and those have been losing market share.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Maybe Microsoft and the RIAA could pool their legal resources and sue people for storing their mp3s on pre-formatted FAT media. Instead of having two separate legal teams clogging the courts with two seperate cases - they can streamline the process of picking your pocket. I think the legal system should become a publically traded company.. judging by current trends business is booming!
These people (who will often make purchasing decisions and plan technology) haven't the first clue what a filesystem is. All they know is that if they stick it in the machine and it doesn't work, it's broken. Now, if you were a memory card manufacturer, and you had the option to not pay a $0.25 license fee per device, at the risk of a very high rate of 'defective' product returns and lost satisfaction, while your competitors bit the bullet and sent preformatted devices to market, what would you choose?
Honestly, I'm as much of a Microsoft-hater as the next guy (maybe moreso) but I just can't see them shooting themselves in the foot on this one.
What concerns me is, does this effect FAT implementations in other operating systems?
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
I've been looking for a FFS/UFS or UFS2, alas FreeBSD filesystem, for Windows (NT, 2000, XP and 2003), anyone know if such is available?
I really need it, so I would be really glad if one could point me to one of those.
-
Does this mean that manufacters are required to buy a licence or is it only if they want to, as the story says have the opportunity to standardize the FAT file system implementation in their products, and to improve file system compatibility across a range of computing and consumer electronics devices.
? I don't see any place where it says that they are required to obtain a licence.
-
If they are required to obtain a licencse, then doesn't that mean that they could charge a royalty to anyone who uses software to read/write FAT, such as any operating system like linux? Indeed, some PVR's and other consumer electronic devices do use linux. Does this mean linux must remove FAT code?
Thanks in advance. I think Microsoft could sue anyone and everyone who uses FAT, but that would make them even less popular and could possibly bring another antitrust trial. Unlike SCO, they would have a very obvious case.Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
In the latest news from Redmond, Microsoft is going to charge a license fee for any software product that randomly crashes without saving the work of the user and any process that requires more than three restarts to start it at all. While not specifically patented, Microsoft legal representatives point out that these traits are "inextricably linked and identified with Microsoft products, and therefore have the standing of trademarks and/or copyrights." In related news, BMW announced they have licenced from Microsoft the "Blue Screen of Death" for their 7-Series with i-Drive.
Does this apply if you develop your own FAT-formatting software?
Or does it just apply if you sell media that is formatted with FAT?
I'm guessing here, but I expect that if you sell your media unformatted, you'll be OK of course, but what MS is trying to do is prevent anyone from selling MEDIA that is FAT-formatted, but they can't stop you from using something like let's say FreeDOS or Linux to format the media once you've bought it?
Is that right?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
This shows that microsoft actually does support progress... Now an alternative file system will be brought up. One less MS product to rely on.
No sig. Go away.
Does this mean that un-enforced patents should expire in 10 years instead of the normal 17 years?
How might this impact enclosing a driver diskette or Installation CD for a product. It might be nice to reduce all those AOL-like ISP CDs, but
could this not really cut into CDs as s distrubution medium?
Does this mean that people who write "standards", or even specifications that become standard through use, can suddenly patent the whole thing 20 years down the road? I'm thinking CD standards, etc? And what about cross compatibility of file formats? Can Microsoft force companies that have programs capable of opening, using, and saving in their file formats to pay licenses? Open Office, and others, for instance?
Hey, that has a nice ring to it.
It will drive people to look for open source solutions even faster than they are now. Nice move Redmond.
and that fat fs can be replaced with... oh, what... choice of about 80 choices?
Anybody has the right to file a patent and attempt to license its technology (as long as the patent makes sense, which is not always the case with software patents, but that's another story).
The right way to do it: get the patent, announce the technology and licensing terms for it, sell licenses to however's interested. This way, manufacturers can decide whether they want to invest into that particular technology or find an alternative.
The wrong way to do it: get the patent, wait for a large number of manufacturers to widely use the technology, then announce licensing terms. This way, manufacturers have already invested a lot of resources into the tech and have no choice but to pay for the license, because switching to an alternative would cost them even more.
In an ideal world, the wrong way should be illegal and carry criminal sentences for extortion.
$.25 per device, but what devices come preformatted as FAT?
maybe usb disk-on-key or memory sticks or CF but thats it(who still uses floppies?)
its not like this affects hard-drive manufacturers as they ship unformatted(unless you buy refurb).
so who exactly does this harm?
the history of the world
Umm no its because the patents don't cover FAT16, only FAT32 which WAS developed between 90-95 for Windows 95
Maybe it is the fact that FAT is actually a pretty sucky filesystem and the only reason everyone uses it is because of Microsoft's monopoly.
.
This is a prime example of a monopoly creating inefficiencies (i.e. hurting the economy and industry) by charging monopoly rents on their inferior but inelastically demanded products.
And maybe just the idea of having to pay for FAT makes people sick to the stomach . .
Or maybe I just believe that the U.S. IP system is eventually going to be the U.S.'s undoing . . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
.... we use FAT32? Nevermind, they must have thought of it...
Do these devices really need compatibility with "dead" operating systems?
The second patent seems to another concerning filename formats. I haven't bothered to look at the other 2.
Ext2 is free :)
jason
Have a good day?! Impossible! I'm at work!
The four patents listed appear to be to do with VFAT, and specifially the way it simultaneously has a short (8.3) and a long name for each file.
The earliest patent was granted in 1996 - what then of the Rock Ridge CD format which offers a somewhat similar mechanism for long Unix filenames over the standard short ISO9660 length, and was adopted in 1994?
That doesn't mean they won't go there, just that they haven't yet. Still, the typical knee-jerk reactions here are as yet unwarrented.
Hmmm?
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
I think if someone choses to fight this, the waiting 20+ years to file the patent, then what 8 years to enforce the patent, should be sufficient to show that MSFT isn't protecting their idea in a timely manner.
I believe that patent holders have to actively protect their "IP" or lose it. Of course I learned all I know about patent law from slashdot, so IANAL and YMMV.
What does this mean for computers shipping from the factory with Linux? Paying a Microsoft tax?
Sounds like this could mean trouble for any linux distro that perfers FAT over UFS or another format.
I think that someone should patent ext2/3 using the "public" type of patent. I think that type is called "SIR". This way, no one could patent ext2/3 and sue us. A defensive patent.
It's very good move by MS.
/. -- when you're done writing around 200k files to flash media it was already past erasure limit for those sectors at the beginning i.e. media was destroyed.
FAT is a terrible format for Flash media, because it constantly updates some variables in first several sectors of the disk. The effect was mentioned some time ago on
So it might actually give some incentive for vendors to move to JFFS or similar FS _designed_ with this flash-specific limitation in mind.
rrw
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
It's not like they provide very much information, but here are the patent abstracts, plus links to the full patents. They sure don't seem interesting, and they all seem to deal with the coexistence of long and short filenames. All of this wouldn't be patentable in Europe.
United States Patent 5,579,517
Reynolds , et al. November 26, 1996
Common name space for long and short filenames
Abstract
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
United States Patent 5,745,902
Miller , et al. April 28, 1998
Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats
Abstract
A multiple file name referencing system stores multiple file names in a file. These multiple file names include an operating system formatted file name and an application formatted file name. When an operating system formatted file name is created or renamed, the multiple file name referencing system automatically generates an application formatted file name having a potentially different format from, but preserving the extension of, the operating system formatted name. The multiple file name referencing system similarly generates an operating system formatted name upon creation or renaming of an application formatted name. A B-tree is provided which contains an operating system entry for the operating system formatted name and an application entry for the application formatted name, each entry containing the address of the same file to which both names refer. The multiple file name referencing system converts the operating system formatted file name to the application formatted file name by accessing the B-tree with reference to the operating system entry, and vice versa. As a result, either file name can be used to directly reference the file without requiring additional file name translation.
United States Patent 5,758,352
Reynolds , et al. May 26, 1998
Common name space for long and short filenames
Abstract
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
United States Patent 6,286,013
This has piqued my curoiusity. What are some free alternatives to FAT? I wanted to do a little reading into the various file systems, nothing detailed, just an overview. So far I've seen FAT, NTFS, ext3 and jfss mentioned. Are there any other "popular" file systems?
.. or my 150 GiB partition (FAT32 W98SE) - heh, I didn't thought that was possible, but it is
and the future for MS requires this of Microsoft: Do everything possible to maintain cash flow in the face of ever-increasing evidence that MS's cash-cow software is being replaced by Linux. A desperate move, and predictable.
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
The patents listed on MS's page all relate to VFAT, more exactly to its dual naming scheme (as you all know, on VFAT a file has a 8+3 "sort" name that the OS uses and a "long" name that you see on the application level) [and at first sight three of the four patents seem identical].
Real life is overrated.
Surely increasing a field from 16 to 32 bits doesn't qualify as 'novel', which is one of the requirements for patentability? I guess it comes down to 'do you have more money for lawyers than M$'?
So does this mean that Palm, using SD/MMC cards, does not need a license? My digital piano which uses floppies? For that matter, cameras that use floppies!?
And this doesn't talk about other operating systems at all. EVERYBODY writes FAT disks, right? IANAL, but it would seem to me that an inconsistently enforced patent is one that is no longer protected.
For major manufacturers, $250K is not a big deal, but it should entitle them to some kind of spiffy logo, I would hope ("FAT inside!", yeah right). I've got some product ideas that might have used an SD/CF/MemStick card (although outside of the above categories), and if this is enforced, I'll probably rethink that need.
Design for Use, not Construction!
I doubt MSFT created FAT out of thin air. Undoubtably there are elements from older filesystems in it ( probably CP/M or the ubiquitous Multics). Wouldn't this invalidate broad parts of any MSFT FAT patent?
Sure, you could have it use another FS (ext2) but can you imagine a DOS not using FAT?
How can so many people be so upset over something that only costs a quarter? I like reading Slashdot, but it seems like too many people here just want something to bitch about. When you buy a CF card for $50, an extra tweny-five cents doesn't really break the bank. With so many digital devices already using FAT, I can't see many manufacturers all of a sudden spending research dollars switching to a new file system over something this trivial. That's just my twenty-five cents....
As long as they don't use both long and short filenames in their implementation, they won't violate those patents. At least that's what the abstracts make me believe. See my other post, where I put the abstracts.
The install process for these devices on Windows could start with a popup box that says something like:
"A recent Microsoft licensing decision prohibits device manufacturers from working with Windows in customary ways. We have included device driver software that will allow you to continue to use our products on Windows despite Microsoft's decision.
Once this is completed, you will be able to use the device normally. You are free to redistribute this device driver under the terms detailed in the [LGPL] license that is contained within the product packaging.
Click the Continue button to install the [ext2 filesystem] driver."
WinFS is a layer on top of NTFS. WinFS does NOT replace NTFS as the lowest layer on the disk. Why should they create a totally new filesystem when NTFS is quite good at what it does?
NTFS supports many features that go unused >90% of the time, such as multiple file streams. WinFS will more fully use features present in NTFS as part of its operation.
Well, we all know that M$ has stocks in SCO, but apparently they have the same lawywers too.
;-)
It's about time to crush those bastards; the lawyers I mean
--
Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.
-- Leonard Brandwein
here's the fist of the patentes in question. Filed for only in 1995, granted in 1996. I've looked at it, but I don't have a good understanding of how claims in a patent work. If each claim represents something they own then I don't see any way they can makes claims as broad as claim 1. If the patent is only for something that matches each and every claim, then it would seem that a very minor (even compatable) varient on one part of any these claims would allow an alternate file system to co-exist that would not infringe the m$ patents. But then it doesn't make much sense for this (or any) patent to go into extreme detail in making claims that would limit what the patent applies to.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Maybe it's what was needed for JFFS2 to see widespread use. Currently it's used in many embedded Linux systems, as a root filesystem. But using it as an exchange filesystem (e.g. on a new flahscard format) would rock - JFFS2 features compression, journalling, wear levelling, and is generally modern an well working.
Disclaimer: I've worked with the FAT12, FAT16 filesystems in assembly language.
FAT is relatively well documented. IIRC, one can already format a FAT filesystem from Linux, and even if they can't, writing the drivers wouldn't take long.
But why would you use FAT in the first place? It's a very inefficient filesystem, built for ancient hardware.
Since static memory sticks have no problems with random access, it doesn't make sense to use traditional filesystems which were designed to minimize seek latency involving mechanical components. In fact, due to the block access factor, most filesystems are very inefficient when it comes to data storage.
One would think that instead of using a filesystem per se, the memory of a memory stick should be managed in a fashion similar to malloc. The difference would be named allocation - a "filename" would be associated with every section of memory allocated.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
They didn't file any till 1995. Kinda clever, really
oh wait, as far as I remember you can't file patents on any invention after certain amount of time (12 months, I believe) since any products using the said invention are sold. Have I been misinformed?
US Patent office (don't know about non-us) has such restrictions on patent filings, as I recall. If MS filed patent on FAT in 95, it's definitely void. I wouldn't be surprised if M$ lawyers somehow made this possible...
It's dishonest and unacceptable for them to attempt
to start charging after so many years, for something
noone has ever charged for before, after it has
become something which has become a de facto standard,
often implemented in hardware. Like GIFs were, their
patent should be ignored, and more ideally, legally
shot down.
Was FAT really innovative anyway? The patents just
cover modern issues probably not even implemented
on 95% of the FAT-handling devices (e.g. my
digital camera). From what I remember of CP/M's
filesystem, FAT didn't seem to be markedly
different.
On another node, as IBM and Microsoft had
cross-licensing for most of their early
DOS-related stuff (remember PC-DOS?), should
their claim not be invalidated, could they simply
grant the world an open license for it?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Saying that ClearType is based on old Apple II technologies is like saying Honda's I-Vtech is based on old Ford Model T technologies.
Yeah they both burn gas, but the beauty is in the details. ClearType is more than just the super-basic subpixel rendering they had in Apple II. Cleartype includes font layout management to get the kerning juts right, color filtering to make sure that the words follow visual patterns, etc.
If you want a neat experiment, turn on Adobe Acrobat's subpixel rendering, and notice how it looks considerably worse than ClearType. Also notice how ClearType is a one-box-check, whereas the Adobe option requires you to pick from I believe 9 different tuning options. None of them look anywhere as good as ClearType, but its the same "Apple II Technology" right?
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but aren't patents pretty particular when it comes to infractions and licensing? (...As opposed to copyrights and trademarks and such...) I seem to recall that if something is patented, you can basically change one little thing and basically be clear of the patent. Or are these patents your standard-issue, overly-broad software patents we've all come to know and love? (IANAPL - I Am Not A Patent Lawyer)
Can any lawyers in the audience clarify this?
Use 100% lean beef.. no wait.. different story..
Really there is a simple solution. Just develop their own file system formats or use 'free' ones like ext3...
Then ship drivers along with their device like the old days when things were still connected via serial/parallel ports..
Sure its a tad annoying to have to go back to drivers for 'memory devices', but its not THAT big of a deal....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm sure it won't be long before someone cracks a FAT.
So an ext2/3 reader/writer drive should come with the driver that consumers install to get their systems to support their devices.
A widely distributed ext2/3 driver for windows could even force Microsoft to include support for it in future OS releases.
Anyone out there thinking of doing a Linux port to the iRiver IHP-120?
(another question: anyone know of when an IHP-140/160/180 will come out?)
Roey
Hold on, wait one more minute........
NTFS for free.
This is in order to make all those handy little devices ________ "choose one or more numbers"
1.) Not work with Linux/OS X
2.) More expensive for Linux/OS X
3.) Harder to find for Linux/OS X
Get a free ipod.
My non-winmodem refuses to work under Linux. I can't get my USB stick to work under Linux. In short, I either have to use floppy disks or copy files from my FAT 32 partition to Linux.
If Linux stopped supporting FAT and FAT 32 then I would reconsider the point of having a dual boot system (given that I only use Linux for perl based cgi development).
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
the manufacturers still have a choice. Pay MS, or turn away from them using another filsystems. This -in a long term run, might cause problems to MS. They'll have their FS, but will have to pay to implement the support for other FS, since no devices would work for MS as a standard. Well dome MS - so much for cutting the tree you're sitting on.
This would certainly fit with the contention that these are fat32 patents only, which were developed and released within a few years of the 1995 filing.
-- Point? None! Cob.
I'm wondering what does this mean for e.g. taiwanese manufacturers selling in Europe - they for sure don't need to comply to weird software patents. Will they pay only for their US market share ? That Microsoft tactic seems more aimed at countering embedded Linux systems than really making money off FAT ...
Maybe I won't have to reformat all my media in ext2 in the future! I wouldn't even miss a beat if I were a manufacturer -- I'd just hunt down the Windows Ext2 driver (I KNOW I've seen one of those out there) and ship all my hardware formatted in ext2 with a copy of the driver.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Since for ages FAT was the standard for PC machines, couldn't this be fought as an Industry Standard?
They just don't get it, do they? The key to success is being COMPATIBLE. If they really do follow through with this, then the manufactureres are all going to come up with their own propriatary formats -- they are NOT (I'll repeat just for effect NOT) going to pay a license fee for a crappy FS like FAT. The only reason that it is used is because it is compatible with so many existing system, and it is relativly simple to implement.
They could use a free FS and that would be nice, or they could all get together and come up with a new, open system. But I'll bet that we end up with a mess of different systems.
bcl
This patent covers the "VFAT" extensions to FAT16 then. It doesn't cover the classic 8.3-only FAT. The trick here is that a VFAT filesystem may be read by a classic FAT16 implementation without causing it to blow its proverbial cookies.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
And didn't Caldera buy out DR? So really, the IP for FAT would be SCO's?
"... volumes bigger than 2gb..."
This should be file sizes bigger than 2 Gigabytes.
There's always: http://sys.xiloo.com/
Which seems a bit improved on the very useful expore2fs.
I want NATIVE file system integration, VFS is NOT DEEP ENOUGH.
http://sys.xiloo.com/
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Time to drink a few more cups of coffee and chill out!.
...not to kill Linux FAT support. The prices they've set are for a very specific set of items, and are low enough that I suspect the manufacturers will just pay them. I suppose they might decide to try to license FAT for use in Linux and the BSDs later, but if they do they risk triggering antitrust litigation again, and regardless of how easily they got off this time, I doubt they want to go through that again.
It says:
It doesn't say that Microsoft will begin sueing entities that use FAT. (Not that that won't happen, but this move by Microsoft seems to be in a more benevolent spirit.)
~DanielThis is certainly not true. With copyright law, it's illegal to copy code. With patent law, ideas are patented. Wheter it's implemented in a 'clean room' or not, that really doesn't matter.
THAT's the reason why we detest software patents in the first place!
To be able to bring out preformatted FAT flash devices without paying the Microsoft license, one would have to claim rights to 'prior art'.
In contrary with copyright law, however, it's the responsability of the IP holder to come down on the infridger (so as long as you don't get a letter from MS, you aren't obligated to take action).
Yet IANAL but in my past businesses talked about these issues alot with lawyers.
Regarding the question wrt European manufacturers usage of the FAT filesystem. First needs to be seen if these patents are also valid in Europe or not. After initial issuing a patent in Europe, US or Japan it's automatically valid for 3 years in all of these regions. After this period it needs to be registered in the specific region. As I presume these are quiet old patents, one should look into this.
However, there still is controversy regarding software patents and its enforcebility in Europe. European software patents should also have a hardware part. This license has a hardware part, but the patents themselves not. ;-)
You might want to consult a patent lawyer to verify this, but I would bet that it's unenforceable in Europe. However, I wouldn't bet on this for 250k USD
A lot of smaller device vendors will probably sell the unformatted version after they receive letters from MS (which is a pity as FAT is readable/writable by Win/Mac/Linux).
A lot of users will now unknowingly format their cards using NTFS making it harder to exchange data with non-Windows users...
Regarding the FAT driver in Linux; as this MS license only speaks of preformatting digital media in the FAT filesystem, this is not an issue today.
Could Microsoft ask money for inclusion of the FAT driver in the Linux kernel?
Remember, patents are about ideas, not about the actual implementation or even in which language certain algoritms are written (it's about what is accomplished, not about how it's actually done). So as the FAT filesystem is patented technology, they could theoretically take action.
However, the action needs to be taken by them first. If 'prior art' can prove that the Linux implementation is based upon technology very simular than the patents issued, a case in court might prove the patents to be not really valid.
Such a thing would also destroy all possible revenues from licensing programs such as these (it's higly unlikely that device manufacturers will try to prove they had access to prior art, the long-bearded fs developers in the OpenSource community are probably less easy to convince - especially since the patents where only filed in 1995).
If the outcome of a legal case would be different, chances are higher that distributions would just drop the filesystem driver instead of paying money to Microsoft.
So, to me it seems that Microsoft would have more to loose than to gain from going after the FAT driver in Linux.
copyright.
Manufacturers liposuction their products to get rid of FAT...
how long until
The issue in these patents (AFAICT) is the method of encoding the long file names in the filesytem while keeping compatibility with the on-disk format for directories (to allow applications that directly read the filesytem to continue to work).
IMHO this is utterly non trivial.
If they were patenting the extension of FAT12 to FAT16 or FAT16 to FAT32 that would be a trivial extension but that's not what M$ is doing in this case.
Although WHY on earth they're doing it is beyond me - it's not like they need to squeeze even MORE money out of the computer industry.
PBX's ...
DVD players
Game consoles
you mean you use fat32 partitions in excess of 60GB :) fat only supports 7.8GB which I believe was the parents point
For those people who can barely click a mouse, much less format a hard drive, you could create a small FAT16 partition on the device, then have a SETUP.EXE or even an autorun system that'll repartition as FAT32 and format the device.
GINF is a filessytem structurally similar to FAT and just by coincidence happens to be compatible, but is not FAT. Would some crazy idea like this work to dodge a patent? If you have a clean implementation of the filesystem that differs in specs from another fs are they really the same? I think it would really only be FAT if you use the microsoft driver. If you don't use the MS driver it must not be true FAT. LAME seems to use this idea; everyone knows LAME Aint an MP3 Encoder, it just so happens that by pure coincidence the files it outputs are compatible in an mp3 decoder.
I prefer: "I'd rather have a free bottle in front of me than a pre-frontal lobotomy"... but that's just me... ;)
These patents, as has been mentioned before, cover only long file names.
Based on my cursory reading of the patents:
A device that merely formats a storage device so it can be used by an infringing writing device would not by itself infringe these patents.
Similarly, if a camera (for instance) does not contain logic capable of writing long file names it would also not infringe these patents.
Microsoft probably set the maximum at $250,000 because it would cost more than that for a company to litigate the issue.
So in U.S. copyright law, if a copyrighted term, say, for a company name, becomes commonly used as a verb (Kleenex, Xerox, etc. maybe even Google), you generally have a pretty hard/impossible time defending the use of it.
Why the hell isn't patent law this intelligent? If you've held a patent on something and have let it be known as a free, commonly used standard for decades (like MS), you shouldn't be allowed to suddenly start charging people fees for it. Talk about monopolistic, unfair competitive practices. Companies aren't stupid. They generally only include patented technology in their products if the patent holder does not and shows no intention of suing/charging companies that use this patent.
It doesn't look like these FAT royalties are too bad yet. But this opens up a huge can of worms should they decide to expand who can't use the technology for free.
I recall that Novell's Netware 3.x had the ability to use multiple namespaces, and would automatically produce truncated versions from long file names for DOS machines. Used to run a Novell server that had Mac, Unix and DOS/Windows clients.
that means FAT 32 with long file name is no-no, while old FAT (16) with 8 chars and 3 letter file extension is just fine. MS has no ground to charge for old FAT, as its patent (even if they have one) must have been expired long time ago.
Great! Now I can make good use out of "Progra~1" folder and "Docume~1" folder in the FAT partition of my HDD. I can still save files with long names like "Paris Hilton video (this is real).wmv" in ext3 or raiser.
As always, thanks Bill for innovations.
That seems to be the best way to rid the world of there obsolete technology. Yeah Microsoft, If only they would start charging for Internet Explorer, that would really make my day.
Umm no its because the patents don't cover FAT16, only FAT32 which WAS developed between 90-95 for Windows 95
It's surprising how stupid the USPTO can be.
You can patent almost anything nowadays.
Ofcourse, with the Japanese Patent Office, you have to be more specific with patents unlike the "patent owns everything and the kitchen sink" stupidity of the US patent law... so moving to 32bits would be a valid innovation (hell, adding a single attribute field would probably be a valid innovation) there.
Erm, hasn't FAT been around longer than MS? Surely it's not their own invention.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
It looks like the patents apply to what they did to allow long file names on top of the old FAT system, and appear dated in 1998 and 1999.
That would seem to imply that the FAT16 8.3 format could still be free to use. Long filenames, and possibly FAT32, might be targetted with this.
But, has M$ enforced this with anyone? What's the statute of limitations on failnig to enforce a patent before it becomes unenforceable? It would certainly seem to apply in this case -- after all, they "allow" their IP to be used on a variety of devices to the point it becomes a "standard" and THEN they claim IP licensing fees? Seems if they failed to enforce it until now, they gave indirect approval to use this particular IP without license fees.
If, on the other hand, they did take even minor efforts to protect their IP in this type of scenario, probably with "confidential" license agreements with a couple of companies, then the situation is totally different.
Any one know what the real status of this is?
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
wow people post to slashdot fast :o
You're new here, right?
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Instead of buying preformatted discs consumers are going to have to take the extra time and format them themselves. Thanks Microsoft!
(Gee, I always wondered why hard drives don't come formatted, but now I do!)
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
They cannot possibly win this if someone takes them to court. They have knowingly allowed and proliferrated that FAT file system and since its creation in 1972 have not once tried to enforce the patents.
Do they own enough patents to shut that project down? If they make sure we lose both FAT and SMB, I'm afraid that will do a lot of damage to Linux. Both dual-boot and fileserver Linux will disappear.
I bet they are particularily interested in pushing aside Samba, since that would automatically mean more 2003 licenses.
Stop the brainwash
The windows ipod uses FAT. Just another reason why I will not buy a windows ipod- I don't want microsoft getting money from me in such a back handed fashion.
FAT is so old and MS is moving away from it- in some ways it makes sense to charge and some ways it does not. It made sense not to charge for it when its desktop market was using it- that way other companies are encouraged to adopt/use it and MS desktop market is further strengthened. Now since MS is moving away from FAT they will charge for it and can claim stuff like it is for maintance. Charging now helps them twofold, they get money from it (and despite whatever they say maintaining that code is essentially free, FAT has been around 20+ years so it everything should be as stable as it will get) and it will also encourage companies to move to MS's next greatest fs further strengthening their desktop position. With all that said I think it sucks- and I would adopt something totally un-MS. Too bad jini failed, even though java sucks, it may/might be able to solve this problem.
I would suspect that these card-makers and the like will be scrambling to work around the Seattle Computer Products FileSystem the M$ bought. Someone's comment about NTFS seemed rather inane to me, too.
So perhaps we need to have an easily supported format, say, like ext2 (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) and ensure that the appropriate navigation tools are available. (Actually, having a way to get MacOS or Windows to work with a filesystem originally written for Linux would not hurt; imagine JFS, Reiser, etc, being available to such systems.)
The whole idea, of course, is to raise the price of the products by making royalties from them. While the idea of making money this way through licensing is one that makes _some_ sense, I'd assume M$ will be selling such products themselves... and will use high license fees to kick everybody else out of the market. Well... not before they cough up the money.
It's like drugs: with all of these devices we're all now addicted to IP that M$ owns and they can now start charging us for it. (I suspect BG has watched "Live and Let Die" for marketing concepts...)
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
Hmm. Do you think any of the manufacturers of those kinds of devices with embedded electronics have been moving to Linux recently?
This is MS trying to get their fingers into everybodies pies - hopefully the manufacturers will just not use FAT.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
I bet this is just a move on MS' part to get everyone to migrate to the new WinFS. FAT, after all, is old and losing its value more and more every day.
Hell, I would have just Public Domained that thing and be done with it. Some patents aren't even worth defending after 20 years....
They didn't file any till 1995. Kinda clever, really - don't even bother patenting it untill you see if it's going to be popular.
And in all that time, did no one think to create an alternative or possibly improve the idea with their own work? Did everyone use this same format and not grow simply because it was "free"? I've seen a few posts mentioning JFFS but also saying that it's an unacceptable alternative. So, honest question: is there a single alternative available?
Now that's an excellent proof for the claim that patents foster innovation, isn't it? Patents on FAT 'technology' plus a company enfocing them provide should be quite effective as an incentive to create something better.
http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
IBM should open source HPFS or JFS
Dear Sirs:
I'm a computer professional. On rare occasions I still used floppy disks that I have formatted and put business product on. I might distribute two or three a year to business contacts this way. It has come to my attention that Microsoft now wishes to enforce it's patents on the FAT file system and I believe that the floppies that I distribute might fall under this extension of you monopoly power. Therefore I would like to request that you provide me with the proper paperwork and licensing agreements so that I can pay my 25 cents each time I do distribute a FAT formatted floppy with my product on it.
If we can take down web sites, perhaps the Microsoft legal department should receive a few million requests from people who want to be sure they don't cheat bill out of his two bits when they format and distribute a floppy.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This seems to be an offer from Microsoft to license their FAT file system to companies that wish to have their expertise/source/technology to use in products. If you are already satisfied with your FAT-equipped device/os then just don't pay the Microsoft Tax(tm). Am I missing something here or will the price of memory-sticks, flash cards, cameras, etc suddenly go up?
TT
The patents listed on microsoft's page cover the short/long filename system, which still applies to fat32, or anything else that uses that for that matter.
Your credit card information wants to be free.
is Microsoft going to start licensing the Joliet extensions to ISO9660? MS developed the extensions for long file name support, the type of thing that is patented for FAT.
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/jolspec
So are MS enforcing the patent on the crappy FAT16 - some cheek there! - or the improved FAT32?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
"Microsoft needs to defend this patent lest they lose it."
You're confusing Trademark law with Patent law; Trademarks must be defended lest they be abandoned, patents can be enforced against some, all, or none of those infringing on the patent at the patent-holder's whim. The entire practice of "defensive patents" rests on this.
U.S. Patent #5,579,517 Common name space for long and short filenames
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
U.S. Patent #5,745,902 Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats
A multiple file name referencing system stores multiple file names in a file. These multiple file names include an operating system formatted file name and an application formatted file name. When an operating system formatted file name is created or renamed, the multiple file name referencing system automatically generates an application formatted file name having a potentially different format from, but preserving the extension of, the operating system formatted name. The multiple file name referencing system similarly generates an operating system formatted name upon creation or renaming of an application formatted name. A B-tree is provided which contains an operating system entry for the operating system formatted name and an application entry for the application formatted name, each entry containing the address of the same file to which both names refer. The multiple file name referencing system converts the operating system formatted file name to the application formatted file name by accessing the B-tree with reference to the operating system entry, and vice versa. As a result, either file name can be used to directly reference the file without requiring additional file name translation.
U.S. Patent #5,758,352 Common name space for long and short filenames
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
U.S. Patent #6,286,013 Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short file names in an operating system
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
It's just going to drive more people to open software like Linux and BSD. In the meantime, it's gonna cause alot of trouble.
Microsoft is pulling on the strings by charging for FAT. Let's see how many puppets dance.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
i have a neuros with one of those 20gig backpacks. i mount it using vfat and it uses long file names. i suppose thats my fault since i made the file names in the first place. really though, just because your camera doesnt use long file names, it doesnt mean that nothing out there does. i'll be just as happy if everyone starts using ext2 or some such.
-- john
Isn't Microsoft going to run into trouble for neglecting to enforce its patent early on?
Static, EEPROM (flash) and all other memory chips allready have a built-in filesystem. RAM means random access and voltages on the pins select the exact points on the chip. FAT is used because just about every OS supports it and cheap card readers can be made.
Using no filesystem will get the best usage of the memory chips. Please note that a 1440k floppy won't give you that but perhaps 10% less. As usual M$ shoots itself in the foot and camera makers can advertise 10% more pictures to a card. Tar would work nicely as a 'filesystem' and as far as I know that is free and even Windows understands it. Tar is very efficient but not exactly 'random access' something not usually needed in a camera.
No filesystem or minimal formatting works well on all removable media. That includes DVDs and CDs which will hold considerably more if you don't use cd9660 or UDF. If you have Unix (and SCSI) try it if media is intended to be streamed. Any further discussion of this is offtopic.
It would not be hard for device makers to switch to ext2. People only buy CF cards for devices that use them. All of the devices that use them come with Windoze drivers and programs to manipulate them. Each of these device makers could decide to switch to the superior ext2 file system and include all the software needed, if they don't just have that as an option on the device itself. This would simplify their devices and give them greater flexibility in their software. The only problem would be that people with older devices will have trouble sharing their CF media between the devices. That's no big deal when you consider how cheap CF is now and how much better the newer devices are. People who buy devices already have to go through the pain and suffering of windoze program installation, formatting the media is a small pain next to that. CF makers would come around quickly.
M$, you have screwed up trying to extort people for your ugly kludge.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Kill linux and the GPL? Hmm...
Worst case for linux:
Long filename support for FAT is taken out of the kernel and you access everything using ~1's.
Worst case for GPL:
Nothing changes at all
Your credit card information wants to be free.
I couldn't find the parent I wanted to reply to again when I scrolled back, so posting it on the root parent.
There was a link to a history of dos page, and that brings up a good point about microsoft. Microsoft has rarely innovated. For the most part, they commandeer someone else's technology and market it. Not that this is bad business practice, buying up people's IP is fair game. But microsoft bills themselves (heh, Bills... anyway...) as a massive innovation company, when really all they are is a marketing company. Take a poor sales product, sometimes fix it up, and market it with big money and get it used and associated with their name recognition and be trusted because of it (well that was more true a few years ago).
Applying patents to things people never got around to patenting maybe does not feel fair for most, but its fair game in reality.
Suddenly enforcing age old patents is within their rights, but certainly is not the friendliest of moves.
In any case, the masses some day will realize the lack of innovation at microsoft, and how much innovation there exists in the free software realm, and microsofts days will one day (though probably not soon) be numbered.
Microsoft is doing this to kill FAT? Let's face it if they could have done this to kill off 16 bit legacy support they probably would have charged something for that too. Killing off FAT also would force technology users to use maybe FAT32 or something newer?
Or they are testing the waters to see if they can charge for FAT32, NTFS, etc. Or do they own patents on those technologies as well?
Furthermore, any other drive formatted with NTFS that I wanted to access, like a USB or Firewire hard drive, would be similarly difficult with a Linux machine.
I had a computer at work die recently. The motherboard popped a chips as it turns out. The problem was that it messed up the hard drive (NTFS) in the process. I couldn't get the drive to mount on any other NT machines so I tried running a Linux distro from CD. It mounted the drive without problem and was able to read most of the contents (some of it was still gone but I was able to recover my work from that day at least). So in this case Linux was better at handling NTFS than Win2K was.
What about Ethernet's and Firewire's protocols?
open4free
...that we can't even reduce the problem by slimming the file system. Because then it won't be FAT anymore.
HPFS was designed by Gordon Letwin of Microsoft.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
OS/2 had a method of creating long filenames using extended attributes when running on FAT (instead of HPFS). OS/2 stores long filenames and extended attributes in files "ea data. sf" and "wp root. sf" in the root directory of the filesystem. The files are still accessible by plain old DOS.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
The patents listed on Microsoft's licensing page ( #5,579,517, #5,745,902, #5,758,352, #6,286,013) all seem to relate to the alterations MS made to FAT to support long file names and interoperability between long and short file names.
As I understand it, all the digital cameras that I have seen do not use long file names at all. They present their file names as DSCF0001.JPG etc.
From http://www.itc.nl/~bakker/info/rs-data/cd-family.h tml:
(Emphasis mine)IANAPL, but this would seem to be prior art if it appeared when I think it did (ca. 1994). I'm pretty sure the first couple Linux CD collections I got in early '95 had Rock Ridge extensions.
"My life's work has been to prompt others... and be forgotten." --Cyrano de Bergerac
FAT12 will support 16MB
FAT16 will support 2GB under 9x, 4GB under NT.
FAT32 will support 2TB, but FDisk chokes after 512MB.
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
... waiting until our culture has these tunes stuck into our brains since childhood, our popular culture fully enveloping it, then modify laws and technology to force payment for all of their lives, then their children, then their children.
To make money, when you cannot discover, you innovate. When you can't innovate, you litigate.
There's nothing new about the concept--there's prior art in Unix, and they're called 'inodes'. :)
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Could this be M$ attempt to strike back at apple for now making iTunes for w$? This could make it too pricey to produce ipods for w$, an effectively make it so only w$-running music players survive.
My first few digital cameras formatted themselves if the media wasnt 'right'.
Took just a few seconds.. it wasnt a big deal, and from then on out it never needed to again ( unless i stuck the card in my newton or something ).
Yes they were only 4mb cards...it was a while ago.
Even now, my 256mb CF card only takes a few seconds to format.. ( unless its actually only doing a 'fast format' )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
FAT is much older than 1981. FAT (File Allocation Table) file system was originally written by Bill Gates for Microsoft's Disk BASIC for the Altair back in 1975.
CP/M used a totally different file system. QDOS is also much later than FAT.
The patents being discussed are not for FAT itself but for the additions to FAT that were done for Windows 95.
Actually the microsoft article says that the manufacturers of those types of device can licence the FAT technology for 25c per item. What it doesn't say explicitly, but could be implied by the article, is that everyone else who uses FAT has to talk to microsoft to agree other licencing terms.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
The document is dated December 6, 2000. And on page 2, licensing terms are shown:
Look at it like this, it's just one more reason for embedded developers to switch over to BSD or linux. Assuming you get a Open Source kernel free of any FAT drivers, not only are you saving ~100 in licensing fees for the OS, but also a lump sum of 250k in other 'fees'. This will only help accelerate linux/BSD acceptence in the embedded space and create mor ejobs for us.
(I include BSD because, although it is dying, includes the best licensing terms for businesses)
All your base are belong to us!
The Dakota Disposable Digital uses the FAT12 file system internally (just like all smart-media products), but this isn't really noticible though its interface to the outside world. The only externally visibile part is the directory entry, of which they don't use all the fields. The FAT table & directories (it does use 2 directories internally) is totally hidden from the interface.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
This has been happening for years, why do you think Adobe PDFs are so popular with corporate customers, even if they don't (or they can't be locked down) very few users have the writer/editor. So things like invoices, contracts and stuff can be sent out with some security.
But Adobe PDFs rely on a simple password security, so anyone with the password (or cracked) can edit it, also it's an open format, so other editors can simply ignore the password.
The DRM in Office 2003, and in the new Windows OS's is an attempt to prevent that from happening and make the administration of it alot easier, instead of using a password, you can specify specific users/groups within the corporation can modify, or even read the document. This would also apply with forwarding of e-mail.
As a business owner I like this, and see where it can be used. Last year I received a set of test results for the new Boeing 777-300ER(nothing important because according to the results there was an issue with the testing equipment, and testing was canceled for the day), not once, not twice but three different times; I got it because in the users address book, the e-mail list that I was on, was next to the e-mail list that I subscribe to.
I see in business applications that DRM might be the solution to the problem of information leakage. But I would like to see it to be restricted to be used only with Active Directory systems, that way it can't be used outside businesses.
fdisk does weird shit after about 80G i've found. it will create the partitions ok, but report that they are 234.7TB in size. DOS (win32 version) format also misreports the size on anything over 60G but does actually format correctly - all partitions and disks show up once a version of windows is installed.
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
Watch out! SCO has proprietary rights to that business model - you may get a "friendly invoice" for calling attention to it.
I bought this house and you know I'm boss
Ain't no h'aint gonna run me off
Reading the article, it looks like Microsoft is really targeting Embedded systems. Suppose you are a corporation and deciding which Embedded OS to use for your new camera. Do you use an Embedded Free Software system, and pay Microsoft $0.25 / camera so that your cards will be automatically read when the user puts them into their Windoze PC?
What if Microsoft only charges $0.20 for it's embedded OS?
Even if the Microsoft Embedded OS would cost you $1.00 / unit (and I have know idea of this pricing) you are still in far muddier water if you want to keep users happy.
The tech support calls when people expect to be able to access thier cards w/out installing any additional software on their XP machine alone would make it worthwhile to fork over the $0.25 / unit. (And you've got to have a million sales to meet that $250,000 cap).
Sorry, I misread the license. I saw "creating portions of products which comply with the Specification" at the end of the paragraph, but didn't notice that the license simply allows you to distribute the "Specification solely for the purposes of creating portions of products which comply with the Specification in unmodified form."
But there's a lot more legalese in there, including a Covenant Not to Sue which may or may not say that Microsoft won't sue you for implementing the spec. Perhaps someone who is more proficient in legalese than I am could take a look and comment?
Yet another brilliant step to support open source. This will make everybody think about using alternative file systems (minix anybody?) and move away from Microsoft products...
Err I screwed up this paragraph should be
As a business owner I like this, and see where it can be used. Last year I received a set of test results for the new Boeing 777-300ER(nothing important because according to the results there was an issue with the testing equipment, and testing was canceled for the day), not once, not twice but three different times; I got it because in the users address book, the e-mail list that I was on, was next to one of the managers that was to recieve the report.
Here is a PDF version of the same specification.
YAY we're going back to the 80's where floppies were not formatted by the manufacturer and the ones that were cost about a dollar more per floppy! thank goodness that cd-rw's use UDF and not FAT
Tinfoil hat warning.
What I would do, if I were an evil overlord type is this: Mention in the C&D's that MS isn't charging for NTFS. This could be justified behind a smokescreen of "FAT is bad, NTFS is better, we want to give you an incentive to move to the better FS."
Then, only MS can write to these devices (safe NTFS drivers for other OSs don't exist). Instant platform dependence.
And, of course, since the C&D would say nothing about future royalties on NTFS, they could start charging for NTFS after everyone switches.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
...if you bought Windows, you already paid for the FAT driver. Oh you mean for interoperability with Linux/UNIX etc.? How about networking or using CD-RW or DVD+-/*RW?
...since my Nikon CP800 uses FAT but predates this patent announcement, but I just sent Microsoft $0.25... in pennies.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
$.25 isn't a whole lot to add on the price of those things, especially as inexpensive as they are now. I also don't see MS suing anyone over it yet either. (They may soon though. we'll see)
Had SCO owned the patent, they would have sued everyone, and be trying to charge $699 per unit or some ridiculous price...
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Standard televisions?
Am I that old? I thought that only non-standard televisions would have any file system.
Given the rapidly increasing obesity of the American public, Microsft will make quite a bit of money by charging for fat. I wonder if I can have liposuction and send my extra 20lbs back for a refund and get myself a copy of Lindows?
Free your ecomony and enact the FairTax
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/cleartype. asp
Something which is ported to Linux and other operating systems. That is more of a problem for all I can see that fees on devices which are FAT formated.
Does anyone know if SCO is paying license to
MS for use of the FAT file system for this old
OS?
Microsof~1 needs a little bit of extra cash going into the upcomi~1 holida~1 season. Maybe now all of these smalli~1 devices will get a decent FS.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Any feature used (and publicly known) more than one year before the patent filing would have prior art...
AFAICS, the patents only cover the long filenames kludge that they did on top of FAT...
'whoo technology!'. Since when is a bad hack a patentable invention. Somebody at USPTO deserves a giant kick in the behind.
I think this is a reinvention of Microsoft indicating that the company, as a corporate entity, is beginning to see the end of the easy days when they had a stranglehold on the world, unlimited resources, no immediate debt, and no competition.
Correct me if I'm wrong. This is what I remember happening:
Bill Gates' first real business deal was with a hard drive maker (who?) supplying IBM. This was the business deal which put the money in his hands to make the rest of the MS phenomenon happen. IBM had received a huge, taxpayer funded, government contract to provide computer systems for some initiative. The hard drive maker (XYZ) had the contract to supply the drives for these systems. The defining requirement for the hd contract was that the drives come preinstalled with an OS. What the OS was made no difference since the systems would be revamped when they got wherever they were going. Bill Gates was somehow in the social circles who were making this happen. Bill immediately took QDOS, from his programming project at college, and offered it to XYZ. In return, XYZ and IBM both signed the paperwork which acknowledged QDOS as being sole property of Bill Gates. From what I understand, Bill contributed only the bare minimum to the research group that wrote QDOS. As a member of the group he let others do the work to make the grade and kept a copy of the finished product.
Bill took the money from this sort of licensing and made Microsoft with it. Our politicians sold us to Bill Gates from the very beginning.
This move to license FAT looks like the same sort of maneuver. Microsoft is hoping that this will give them the financial leverage to propel themselves into the next few years until they can work over enough hardware manufacturers to restructure the architecture, make it MS dependent, and once again achieve a stranglehold on the world.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
The Microsoft patents cover only their specific implementation of how to map long file names to short file names. Some of the earlier patents they reference are:
If you looked up Microsoft's patent and wrote code based on it, then you could infringe. If you looked at Winders and tried to do long and short filenames the same way it does, then you could infringe.
Having your MP3 player use FAT and just long file names doesn't infringe, if I'm on the jury.
sigs, as if you care.
"Have I been misinformed?"
/. is rampant.
No, but as usual the misinformation on
My guess is Microsoft is trying to generate some buzz same as SCO.
Why not just format a drive with ext2, ext3, reiser, jfs, xfs etc., and create a very small embedded Samba on the device. That way, both *nix and *doze machine can read them.
Microsoft offers 2 types of licenses:
- preformatted solid state media, $0.25 apiece, up to 250k per manufacturer
- consumer electronics that read fat formatted solid state media, audio players, cameras and such, $0.25 apiece, up to 250k per licensee
In the first case, $0.25 might become substantial enough that the media will be shipped unformatted in the future. This is not a big problem, formatting under windows takes a few seconds (without media check) and you only do it once, it is quite painless. For most consumer electronics, $0.25 is probably low enough that manufacturers will pay up and pass the price on to consumers. Devices that do not read removable media can switch to a different filesystem, but they probably don't need a license anyway judging from the press release. Mass migration to a different filesystem is not likely. Card manufacturers will either ship unformatted, in which case it will probably be formatted with fat by the end user, or pay up and use fat, since that's what all current devices understand. Device manufacturers will pay up because they don't want to break compatibility with existing cards. The only way out that I see is if all device manufacturers standardize on one alternative filesystem (ext2?) and ship a Windows utility to format/read/write the card. This effectively requires an industry wide boycott of Microsoft. I'm not very optimistic about this happening...
Since litigation is the last resort of software companies that can no longer innovate, does this mean Microsoft is not an innovator? Maybe they lost their mojo!
Yet Another Micro$oft Technology Change Tactic - while I laud their continuing efforts to defend their own property (read: sarcasm ). I only see this as an attempt for them to push to get rid of their own technology in favour of new (paladium/security/DRM)... in other words.. you can't build a PC without a licensed copy of a file system which certifies that they can trace a machine back to the builder/owner in case of some violation. bah!
(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here
The patents apply if the manufacturer uses Microsoft's long filename support. My digital camera uses a FAT format, but the filenames are 8.3. So, no Microsoft tax required.
This is also why the patents didn't show up before 1995, shortly after Windows 95 started shipping. Before that, FAT had no long filename support beyond indexing schemes implemented by third parties.
The FAT filesystem limits filename lengths to eight characters, plus a three character extension.
#5,579,517
#5,745,902
#5,758,352
#6,286,013
(For Those too Lazy to read The Article)
The Geek in Black
I know my BCD's (when I'm Sober)
Microsoft rightly sees Linux as an imminent threat to its monopoly, and therefore to its monopoly profits. They are therefore going to do everything they can to stop it. With their sock-puppet SCO, they are planting the seed of doubt that it's legally safe to use Linux. SCO's case against is laughably weak, and against end-users it's weaker still, but it's enough to get people thinking.
After SCO is pounded to dust, then Microsoft pulls out the big guns: lawsuits against Linux users for patent infringement. Unlike the SCO fiasco, this could be a real claim with legal weight behind it. While it would be easy enough to change Linux to work around the patent, this would break compatibility with industry standards and diminish Linux's usefulness. More to the point, real lawsuits with real damages would do a lot more to impede Linux adoption in big business, which is Microsoft's biggest fear.
The major impediment to this is antitrust. We've already seen Microsoft's ability to purchase antitrust immunity in the USA. With suitably large additional campaign contributions, they may well be able to get away with anything they want. The EC may be a little more of a problem, but judging from their recent adoption of software patents, we can expect them to start conforming to their place in the New World Order for Business.
Microsoft has been trying to put itself out of business for years, yet people still buy their products at any cost. They triple their prices, they sue left and right, they consume small companies to put them out of business, they write really crappy software, and still people buy from them.
Microsoft is untouchable.
The above is not worth reading.
What about Microsoft Joliet CD format which allows for filenames up to 64 characters..
Waaa that's innovative, isn't it?
I bet it's cover by some patents.
The TRANS.TBL in this format is older than VFAT by several years...
But man, that guy lemelson is a whore. And we complain about companies abusing patents. Crap...we really need to fix this system...
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
From the article:
A license for removable solid state media manufacturers to preformat the media, such as compact flash memory cards, to the Microsoft FAT file system format, and to preload data onto such preformatted 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.
Now, I'm not a patent lawyer, but what possible grounds could they have for requiring a license to distribute media, which by definition do not perform file system functions and therefore cannot violate a patent relating to methods used to manipulate the file system?
I wonder if this is a real appempt to lisence the technology, or just MicroSoft's attempt to (finally) get rid of the FAT file system, as they've been trying to do with Windows 3.1, 95, 98, etc...
Maybe planned obsolesence isn't working, so legal action will?
This could potentially push companies to opensource options, but would windows be able to read the files on the devices?
I would think the patents cover the filesystem itself, not the interface to it. Thus the device would merely need to respond to queries the same way. Most of the time we don't notice what filesystem a particular device in our computer is running, right?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Wouldn't this affect the FAT implementations used in other Operating Systems such as linux, OS X or *BSD? If it does this would kill interoperability on dual-boot machines, making transfering files a one way thing (you could find ext2 implementations for windows).
Exactly. Many devices use FAT for compatability with the windows Operating System. Expecting people to pay for after using it to make their projects work on a monopolized system is hopefully going to be a nice long nail in the antitrust coffin.
The 2GB Limit is for FAT16 partitions. The 20GB Partitions you've got are FAT32 Partitions.
You must be a Mac user. On Windows EVERYTHING needs to have a driver installed before you can use it. The Windows people are used to this.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
My first and best guess would be trough their assess. No more, no less.
Never forget that this is the company that have claimed wonderfull things like 'a web browser is part of the system kernal' and that 'a media player is inseperable from a operating system'.
Any thing coming out of that company should be taken with a truckiload of salt.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
"Personally I think MS is simply trying to quicken the demise of FAT so they can drop it quicker. About time, too -- there's simply no need for it anymore."
I respectfully disagree. OSX, OS9, Linux, BSD, and almost any other OS that you can think of can read and write FAT. Any device that is to be cross-platform compatible with read/write works very well with FAT. The only other filesystem that I know of that these all read and write is ISO9660, which last time I checked didn't include long filename support without Microsoft Joliet extensions or some other after-spec hack anyway.
Microsoft isn't going to support a filesystem that makes it easier to use devices on a competitor's platform, plain and simple. OS implementers have had to reverse engineer Microsoft's ways of doing things for a long time, and if Microsoft is allowed to litigate FAT out of use, they'll use it to try to force everyone else out.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The patents must only cover the extensions that came in 1995 for long file names in the FAT file system. Linux was supporting long files names in FAT file systems before the patent using the UMSDOS filesystem and it worked like a charm.
I see 2 options, the first is that you can claim that the MS patents are invalid because of prior art (namely UMSDOS) and have the patents re-examined. The success depends on wether MS cited it as a prior art. Secondly, you can simply stop using long file names.
There are some technological things you could do as well but I have to agree with another poster that JFFS (or somthing like it) makes far more sense.
Well, I guess someone needs to write an ext3 driver for the microsofties. Or ... all flash should be
shipped unformatted. I usually reformat to ext3 anyway. Now my camera.. that's a different story.
The digial camera wants vfat. But heck.. the rules were differenct at the time of manufacture.
I home the digital camera vendors plan to adopt an
open filesystem standard and not go proprietery for thier own product line. that would suck.
The patent is also worded to sound as though this is a useful general idea
Apple supported this technique for PRODOS Apple II's accessing AppleShare servers in the mid 80's.
I can't find a link to the hashing algorithm at the moment, but while the syntax might be different the idea is quite similar.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sounds like ext2 is already there, with simple implementations that would fit nicely inside some small embedded device.
However, that's sort of a moot point. The problem is the hundreds of thousands of devices out there already, not to mention the millions of memory cards used to connect to those devices. You expect everyone to throw away all those nifty 256Meg cards they just bought six months ago and buy new memory for their camera/PDA/smartphone or whatever?
Your Servant, B. Baggins
The problem with it is, their implementation of long filenames for FAT was in the hands of people outside of Microsoft well before the one-year prior drop-dead date for the application. Before it was Windows 95, it was codenamed Chicago and it was available to ISV's beginning of 1994 (as in it was available to developers outside of the company BEFORE April 24 1994...) - I know, I was part of that beta program. It does not matter WHAT you have with those people in the way of non-disclosure, they're customers and the moment you put an improvement in the hands of anyone outside of your company, the clock on the filing date starts ticking because you've revealed it to the world as far as the law is concerned.
The first patent, at least, is invalid by their OWN prior art.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Am I the only one to get this feeling?
MS is a convicted monopolist, the Justice Dpt
complained recently that they didn't open enough
of their IP to allow competitors to interoperate
(or that the license fees they want are astronomical)
and suddenly MS starts proposing cheap license fees
for their "key IP". Because VFAT is some key IP, isn't it?
(No, the patents arenat about fat12, they're about
ensuring compatibility between 8.3 and long
filenames).
Look, look, Mr Judge, how well we follow the
settlement, we offer this cheap vfat license to
allow our competitors products to interoperate with MS !
Stephane
Surely, if the patents cover the long filename aspect of VFAT (where you have a long and short filename), then the Linux UMSDOS filesystem may be prior art. The UMSDOS filesystem layers a long filename system onto a FAT system. Looking at some kernel source, it was written in 1993, before the patents were filed.
Benevolent Microsoft deigns to license its wonderful proprietary technologies to foster interoperability.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
My 3 year old digital camera already has the option to format flashcards (Smartmedia in this case) and offers to do it immediately if an erased card is installed...
The patents in question only refer to methods of shoehorning long filenames into DOS 8.3 filenames.
Preformatted flash cards don't need to do this anyway (nor do any other forms of media).
Preformatting media for the FAT filesystem consists of creating a boot block and zeroing a certain number of sectors. That "process" cannot be patented. They would have had to file in 1976 - and if they did, the patent would have expired long ago.
There isn't any reason why embedded devices such as digital cameras or MP3 players need to use long filenames in a Windows-interoperable way.
Anybody who pays money to Micro$oft to license these patents is an idiot.
P.S. It would be a very good idea to remove all VFAT long filename support from Linux ASAP, since these _are_ patents, and it's pretty obvious where Micro$oft is going with this. Linux has plenty of useful filesystems that don't infringe on these patents anyway.
There's two things...
:) , and do not assume I defend MS in this situation. All I defend is the general idea of rights for inventors and their ability to dictate the terms of their rights.
One equally overlooked point is that 'promotion of science and useful arts' does not necessarily mean that it should happen in our lifetimes. While we would *like* to have access to, and benefit from, protected ideas as quickly as possible, the intent of the laws does not promise that free return in our lifetime, but rather in the future.
Whether it's patents, music or other protected content, the 'returning' of the exclusive rights back to the public domain does not hinge on it happening immediately, nor does it neccesarily negatively impact present day society when it doesn't...those who wish to benefit from said invention or enjoy said artistic content, can pay for that access now, or wait 20 to 100 years to have it free-of-charge(unless the rights-holder is philanthropical and chooses to freely distribute) Either way, *future* generations will have access to this *important* knowledge, but the inventor/rights-holder has a good, long time to profit from their idea
Secondly, I don't think taxing IP is realistic due to the fact that assessing the future value of IP's impact on the world would be nearly impossible -- it is not the same thing as a home(1.5% property taxes) especially if it is tied to an upper limit at which point you would be paying back all profits you ever earned and still be forced to release it into the public domain. Also, IP is effectively taxed as earned income to whomever owns the IP and resulting business interests. To tax the IP individually would be double-taxation.
I think the problem boils down to patience and entitlement -- we have way too little of the first and way to much of the last.
P.S. Please do not confuse my opinion with fact
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Comment removed based on user account deletion
here's a Register article about this. It points out that the language they use is newspeak. Thanks for the "liberalisation", Microsoft.
article titled 'Microsoft to Ease Licensing Rules' in WSJ, quoted Microsoft's counsel, Brad Smith saying Microsoft is "open for business in terms of licensing our intellectual property" and is "applicable to all of our products" while denied of any plans of including Windows into it
... make FAT acceptable, that is already is .... or earn $$, @quarter, i doubt it would loose loyalty of customers to open standards ... or make a point in its fight against antitrust investigations, mmmm like this OoO
i dont really see any point in microsoft going into business of licensing one or more of their 4000 patents, esp if they are to start licensing FAT for quarter per device
what do they expect
) confused (
The Prior Art for the first, third, and forth patents may be found in the Rock Ridge Interchange Protocol standard for UNIX, which was an IEEE draft specification as far back as July 13th, 1993 according to this PDF file. The first patent is definitely covered by this.
Now, the second patent, the very specific one about tracking name changes and automatically generating the short-form name and about storing all this info in a B-tree predates the RRIP by about a year. This is one of the nicer features of the extended FAT filesystem -- the part that automatically downgrades "My Lovely File.doc" into "MYLOVE~1.doc" and provides a fast lookup method for it. This may be the bulletproof patent for them. Though the IEEE group definitely was meeting before 1993, we can't be sure that they had discussed implementation-level details of using RRIP as a rewriteable format where files can be renamed. I couldn't find any discussion of using B-trees in the filesystem in a brief skimming of the RRIP draft.
Also, in rereading the third and fourth patents, I realize that they're talking about your ability to either reference your document by either the long or the short file name at the same time. I can't remember if RRIP allows you to use the ISO 9660 8.3 filenames or not. This too may be solid.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Responsding to myself, but this just occurred to me: I wonder how this will affect the FreeDOS project. My first guess would be that they'll have to rewrite the project to use ext2 or some other file system.
Software patents have been commonly regarded as the "nukes" of the software world. I'm beginning to think that MS has decided it has nothing to lose by going nuclear on the free software world.
On the other hand, media pre-formatted in FAT with long file names definitely falls under this. If there were a chance that someone would come out with, say, read-only MP3 media cards, then they would definitely be covered by the patents.
Is there something I've missed here? I mean, my digital cameras don't even use long file names to store the pictures on the card, so how can Microsoft even claim that those patents apply?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
They provided an implementation of Patent #5,579,517, the actual core long filename patent on VFAT. The clock starts on the final valid filing date for a Patent the moment you put the improvement in question in the hands of someone outside of your company or the Inventor themselves. The law considers it as revealing the Patent as implemented Art at that point. Microsoft handed out 5000 copies of the pre-Beta version of Chicago, which would be Windows 95 with long filename support- at the Microsoft Developer's Conference in December 1993. A follow-on distribution of this pre-Beta was done for the ISV's that could not attend the conference- I know this transpired because I was one of the ISV's that recieved a copy end of December 1993.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A quick search on google revealed the UDF Specs:
http://www.osta.org/specs/
For those of you that don't know, UDF is the format that is used by DVDs, but can be used for almost anything.
that if you have a patent for something but you choose not to excersise it for several years and durring that time it becomes a standard, you would not later be able to suddenly "turn on" the patent. I may be wrong, but i seem to recall that from a business law class i took.
If they keep this up I may turn into a mac zelot.
Mac's HFS and HFS+ are another alternative. There's PC (pay) software to read them already in at least 3 flavors, and I believe Linux supports them, too. Of course, these may be covered by Apple patents.
Of course, this might explain why it's such a bitch to format to FAT on a OS X Mac....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
I wish I had fatspect@microsoft.com as an email address. That would be awesome...
I wonder if Novell's multiple namespaces would invalidate any of these patents.
Since the very early days (like NetWare 2.x, for the '286), Novell has had the ability to simultaneously serve multiple namespaces. There was initial support for DOS and UNIX (NFS), and later support for Windows, OS/2, and Macintosh were added. There may be others. This has been around since the '80s (with extensions in the '90s).
What a bunch of crap.
- The Sigless Wonder
Great MS, now we will be plagued by tons of crappy little utilities that you have to install on your PC to enable it to view and drap/drop the contents of digital cameras, USB thumb memory modules, and MP3 players. Every device will have it's own unique file system and require a little utility installed on your PC, instead of having a nice, relatively seamless common standard. That will really make people want a PC instead of a Mac. If manufactureers of these devices are smart they will come up with a standard filesystem and utility of their own so at least you only need one utility installed to use all of these devices.
>they are NOT preventing people from reverse engineering FAT
There is nothing to reverse-engineers the spec is freely (as in beer) available here .
The only thing you don't know is how OEM codepages (short names) are tranlated into UTF-16 (long names), but I think this information isn't hard to find : you just have to know which chars are in some OEM page and what is his value in UTF-16
The Virtual Bookcase: book reviews
With the whole Master & Slave controversy going on, it should not be long before the FAT system get banned. Or at least renamed "No really your butt does not look big in those pants file system"
It also sounds like the main impact in any event will mean that Linux will have to work around the long file name stuff.
If any of you idiots would take some time and think about this, you wouldnt sound so stupid when you start complaing.
When you format your floppy to FAT, you are not USING FAT in YOUR product. An MS product is using the FAT format to make the floppy FAT. Again you are NOT using the FAT format in YOUR product.
Understand?
If Linux and/or other operating systems use (or used or implemented) FAT prior to the patent registration/granting, doesn't that qualify as prior art?
Regards,
Fredrick
PC-DOS had FAT in the very first IBM PC. How is
MS going to claim exclusive ownership over it?
What I'm trying to figure out is how exactly FAT figures into the future. I mean, I'm in no way up with the times as far as computers go. I use PS2 ports, parallel and serial ports, all because they work and they're rock solid and they've been around for a long time. However, I haven't used FAT in many, many years. As soon as NT 3.51 came out, I switched to NTFS, and never had a data loss or a security problem. That was what... 10 years ago? Why are people still using FAT? It's horribly inefficient on any drive 1 gig+ with even a few thousand files, it's got no security, and no crash recovery (journaling). I can't imagine formatting a 40 gig drive as FAT. That's just stupid in 99.9% of the cases.
The USPTO is a bad joke Read this article describing a patent for::Scientific American was not kidding. You could look it up. The patent was issued on October 1, 2002.
The gales of laughter must have reached the Patent Office, because the Director ordered the patent to be re-examined, which I assume means that it will be revoked.
Patent FAT? You could file a patent on fat thighs and the Patent Office would issue it.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Devices like cameras use FAT because they can plug the flash card into a windows PC and mount the file system to transfer data.
This situation is ridiculous, if Microsoft controls the windows platform and only supports FAT then tries to charge for using it, everyone must then pay the monopoly operating system vendor a tax to interoperate with the PC platform solely because they force you to use that technology by eliminating choice. FAT isn't used because it's good, it's used because it's the only darned thing available on Windows that does the job (NTFS isn't an option and again is a Microsoft format). There are better technologies unencumbered by patents (especially crazy patents over long names that are redundant), but Microsoft has never supported them in their operating systems.
I am always amazed at the way most of you hop up and down all over it stamping your feet and claiming FOUL without really taking a second to look at the facts.
1) The Patents in question were those generated with Windows 95, Windows 95 OSR2, Windows 98 and beyond.
2) The Patents in question are for long file name support, not for FAT which appeared way back in 1983.
I know it's fun to microsoft bash, but until recently digital cameras did not support FAT32 which is what most of these patents cover. FAT32 support started showing up once flash memory cards >1GB. There are new Microdrives and the like that newer digital cameras will require FAT32 to read.
To do so they must use either an already patented method (FAT32) and make it backwards compatible with other systems to address the space on said memory card. Last time I checked you'd need some code on said camera that in this case is patented, and thus a license must be paid to the patent owner should said owner wish to charge.
Microsoft does, rightfully so, and should make a little bit of money for making everyones life easier.
ext2 or whatever isn't gong to solve the problem. When's the last time you were able to walk up to a stock Windows running on a box sold from Best Buy for regular computer users and slap an ext2/ext3 file system device and it just work? With FAT32 you can.
Plus $250k for a license fee on something a vendor could sell millions of (digicams) isn't that much in the grand scheme of things. If 1 Mil units are sold it's $4 a unit.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
So raise the selling price of a CF card from $50.00 to $50.25 and raise the price of a digital camera from $500.00 to $500.25. Will this price increase really affect demand in a measurable way?
And how is my PC or Mac going to read a Compact Flash card formatted with reiserfs?
This really could be a big issue... quite a stinker. I'd think CF makers could be over a barrel, and perhaps digital camera makers, too.
IBM's OS/2 v3.0 (released in Q4 1994) allowed long filenames (as well as other extended file attributes) to be stored on a FAT partition. Previous releases may also have had that capability.
The patents cover VFAT (the long file name layer on top of FAT). How about using a FAT16 partition containing a network redirector driver 'mount.exe', followed by a different sort of filesystem?
I would hope that there is enough money floating around in the memory/disk making pool to take MS to task on this on and get their claims to licensing thrown out.
But hey, as the saying goes, IANAL...
How much do you want to bet that this came about because some flash-card manufacturer asked Microsoft for licensing terms and not the other way around?
Seriously, think it though. Patents protect the method of doing something, not its results. Formatting a disk might be covered, but once created the resulting data on the disk is not.
The card manufacturers aren't actually running a DOS format on each flash card; they're doing a block-by-block copy of the data from an already formatted flash card. And even if they're not currently, they trivially could. The block-copy method would not be covered by any conceivable patent.
Remember, patent is not copyright. Copyright applies to the duplication of a work; patent does not. Patent only applies to the actual use of a particular method or device.
There are always some suckers out there convinced they need a license for everything. Why shouldn't Microsoft accept their "gifts"?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Patents can be enforced at any time by the patent owner. They can also be selectively enforced
True, the use-it-or-lose-it rule is much weaker with patents than with trademarks, but there still exists the doctrine of laches (look it up on Google).
OK I am going out on a limb here, because I haven't bothered to check these vague rememberances of facts before posting...but hey this is slashdot, why bother?
anyhow, I know there is a difference in the effective life of a patent under EU and US patent laws. I believe that the US law says the timer stats clicking when the patent was issued, and the EU law says the timer starts clicking when the patent was filed. If Microsoft's patents did take 8 years to issue, this is probably Microsoft stalling the process by filing amendments, etc, meaning the patents may have been filed in 1984. So under EU law they have expired. I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice.
Second, we don't care about making FAT filesystems. We just want compatibility with FAT. This means that any copyright on FAT is not very important, and many patents aren't either. People have mentioned the extended filename patents as the only ones Microsoft has on FAT. Should this concern users of embedded devices? Not at all -- many of them are using the 8x3 format anyhow.
This issue is close to my heart, as I am developing an embedded Linux for wireless applications based upon Bering/LRP, which uses syslinux. Luckily, syslinux uses the 8x3 system so I don't think there is anything to worry about.
Back when I ran a dual boot OS/2, DOS/Win3.1 machine I installed DOS on top of an HPFS formatted drive.
A Patent, in and of itself, doesn't care about those things. So, in actuality, Microsoft could ask for royalties on each and every Patent on this list and legitmately so unless each are invalidated or your implementation is somehow found to not infringe.
Let's go over the Patents one by one, shall we?
5,579,517 - Common name space for long and short filenames. Filed for on April 24, 1995. This one only impacts you if you're using a Common Name Space for long and short filenames. Basically, the scheme they deployed for Chicago- references a preferred embodiment for MS-Dos 5.0 that was apparently handed to the USPTO as part of the application. Very much likely to be invalidated, though, by their OWN prior art release of Chicago to the world in December of 1993. This describes a scheme for handling long and short filenames correctly. If it's not invalidated, you might run afoul of it trying to do a VFAT type implementation.
5,745,902 - Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats. Filed for on July 6, 1992. Reading the abstract of this one, you'd have to allow renaming of just the name and preserving the extention for the purposes of keeping track of the filetype. Abstract explicitly mentions the use of a B-tree (Limits the scope of what they're claiming- you can possibly sidestep things by using red-black, AVL, etc...). They don't appear to have troubled this application with a possible prior art release, but unless you're doing the exact same thing for handling renames, etc. I don't think you're impacted by this one.
5,758,352 - Common name space for long and short filenames. Filed on September 5, 1996. A cursory reading of the Patent filing made by Microsoft leads one to believe that this is a re-application of the 5,579,517 Patent. While I'm not an IP lawyer, they appear to be claiming the same basic things in both documents. If this, in fact, the case, the 5,579,517 Patent's invalidation would likely invalidate this one. You would probably run afoul of this Patent if you attempted to implement a VFAT style filesystem.
6,286,013 - Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short file names in an operating system. Filed on January 28, 1997. This one is an EXPLICIT Patent-style description of how Windows 95/98/Me handles long filenames on an x86-32 platform. Cute. The applicablity of this Patent to anything other than an exact clone of Windows 95/98/Me is doubtful at best. They explicitly mention things like BIOS interrupts and x86 register names in their claims. Better yet, the preferred implementation was deployed to the World at large in Windows 95- TWO YEARS PRIOR to the filing date.
You should consult a Patent attorney before making any decisions regarding this request for royalties from Microsoft. However, having said this, I'd feel fairly comfortable about the situation overall based on the observations made above.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Companies typically defend themselves against this kind of attack by having patents on lots of stuff. Surely there is lots of code in Linux that is eligible for a patent, and can be assigned to some holding company. Such an entity could then offer to do patent trades whenever MS or some other big software bully decides to swing the patent club.
(BTW, don't bother to tell me that this patent only covers embedded devices formatted with the fs, because Microsoft could change its mind.)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Didn't I read somewhere that it's fair use to reverse engineer something to ensure compatibility? If that's true, then why would a device maker need to license FAT from Microsoft? Yeah, I probably read that on /. in a comment that ended in "...but IANAL".
Microsoft gets a format (FAT) widely deployed all over the place, to the extent that it would be tremendously expensive to yank it out, and then, they pull their patent card. This is EXACTLY what will happen with .NET, and MONO will be the victim of it. Don't do it! It's a trap!
A bit obvious, but type "US Patent" into Google and get
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
Type in the number (including commas) and you'll get the full text of the patent.
HTH!
Micrsoft is now fucking the entire computer industry. They made it okay to use FAT, just like they're making it okay to make Mono. Just wait til they use thier patent to enlist litigation against the Mono team, and all the people that make products based on Mono. Cloning a company that makes mediocre software is not the way to go, and ovbiously for all the people that decided to use FAT, they're screwed now.
I, for one, welcome our new FAT overlords...
www.rexguo.com - Technologist + Designer
While flash is random access and doesn't have a physical seek latency, it is indeed a block device. On reads this isn't evident, but on writes it is. You can only overwrite whole blocks at a time. This is why it actually does make some sense to use traditional file systems on flash devices.
The enemies of Democracy are
This is not a huge money maker for Microsoft, this is a strategic move on a couple of fronts.
1. To all those who say the announcement only covers hardware -- you're all wet. This might mean similar claims may be made against software strategies and not knowing is worse than a claim.
2. Linux attack may only be an added bonus for Microsoft in this measure. They might be preparing to build a case for database driven file storage. The SQL server vision they've been talking about. I'm not debating its workability.
Microsoft likes to control the market rather than compete in it. The licensing issue is a new stick or carrot. When they want to push people off FAT drives they can raise this license price.
3. Linux should take this seriously, where it is affected -- I dont know enough to answer that.
Open source should continue appealing to the government for a right to interroperate according to simple, sustainable rules. The government is responsible for protecting consumer choice and fair market -- Microsoft's history shows it cannot be reasonable in this matter.
The Intellectual Property basis for the available file systems should be catalogued. If there is a clear best choice it should be made known.
Of course they will not charge users who make floppies for personal use - yet.
This article points out just one more example of how MS creates 'standards' for the sole purpose of generating future cash flow, not for any technically superior performace gain.
Do you understand?
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
More likely is one of the two following:
1) Antitrust people in Europe are forcing Microsoft to license this stuff.
2) Embedded device manufacturers want LFN's on their cameras and in order to prevent the embedded manufacturers invent their own, M$ is simply licensing the long file name extensions to FAT to prevent them from doing this.
The more the try and charge for such a thing the more people will look at considering other open source file systems
what?
Thank you, MS for making Linux more appealing.
#include
5,579,517
VFAT - short filenames + long filenames in consecutive directory entries. Seems to cover only the method of writing such files. A read-only vfat driver or a read-write driver that reads long filenames but only writes short ones seems ok. The current read-write vfat driver in Linux is theoretically in danger. So are cameras and other kinds of equipment using fat-formatted flash with long filenames,
5,745,902
An alternative method of implementing short + long filenames using B-trees. This does not appear to be the method actually used in VFAT. My guess would be that this is one of the alternatives Microsoft considered during the development of Windows 95 to handle long filenames. This patent does not appear to be relevant.
5,758,352
Continuation of the first patent. (Continuation means adding more claims, but they must be of things described in the original disclosure). This one also claims the medium while the original patent only claimed the method of writing to it. According to this there seems to be a basis for Microsoft's request for royalties on preformatted media, but only if it comes preloaded with data using long filenames. There is money in the removable flash media market and Microsoft is after it.
6,286,013
This one claims certain things about a long filename API. It seems very sloppily written and probably would not be enforcable in court. You *really* don't want to get in court against Microsoft, though.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
IBM came out with the Disk Operating System first.
I still have a factory copy, manuals and disks of IBM DOS 1.0....
I recall Micro$hit coming out with a DOS around 3.x, I think it was the AT&T 6300 that I first began seeing MSDOS shipping with. MSDOS 3.1 I think it was.
We were loading IBM DOS 2.1 on 5160's w/10meg hard drives long before we ever heard of Micro$hit.
As far as I can remember, MSDOS never released a 2.x DOS. So, who invented the FAT system? I would lay money on it that IBM did.
Know M$'s history of ripping people off though, this comes as no suprise.
http://www.micros-1.com
That's how they targetted Elcomsoft for breaking Adobe's encryption. They described the "software device".
Nope, no sig
my mini-box's 256MB compact flash card is...formatted with ReiserFS. Had it been formatted with FAT i would have had lost most of my data already. Oh, and of course it runs Linux, so no need to pay $ for OS...OR buy a 3GHz processor to run bloated windows apps.
Check out www.mini-box.com if you are thinking about installing a carputer. It's a bare bones system but I was able to add a lot to it.
1. As long as Microsoft doesn't patent "method" and word FORMAT we will be safe.
2. As long as memory/storage manufacturers don't format their cards, (leave it up to us) they are ok too.
The economy is failing? Have you paid attention to recent reports?
here
Did n't FAT come out around 1981 or so? I would think it should be out of patent by now.
- B) They don't plan to
- offer a license for non-embedded uses
Obviously, the kernel will be affected if they decide to make licensing mandatory for software uses. My guess is that if the requirements become too onerous, or the margins too thin, that manufacturers in the embedded market will use some free implementation of an alternate filesystem. It probably wouldn't be a huge deal for most non-removable media, and for the others, there's always the possibility of a windows FS driver.Really, the situation is not much different from a commercial developer wanting to license a GPL'd filesystem and not release source - they'd need to pay some royalty to the developers / FSF (If this is even possible - It's been mentioned that you'd need agreement from all of the owners)
Hardlinks on disk do much the same, have been around far longer. The only oddity in vfat names is that they arrange things so only some links show. Similar tricks in CDs that allow for multiple formats have been around since CDs began.
...BZZZZT!
Patents do not cover specific things like being on Media, implemented in software, implemented in hardware, etc.
If the verbiage of the Patent covers a given implementation of a given Invention and your Invention's implementation touches on the Patented Invention, you're infringing- PERIOD.
Just because they're saying it's only the people that are producing the media that have to pay NOW, doesn't mean they won't come knock on your door at a later time for their money for your implementation in your Open Sourced OS.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
As a million people have pointed out, Micros~1 only has patents on the implem~1 of long filena~1 on FAT.
My question is: Does anybody out there know of a digital camera or similar device that actually uses long filena~1? I have a Nikon Coolpix digital camera and it stores the pictures in classic 8.3 format. I can't really see too many reasons why a manufa~1 would include long filena~1 support in a device. Maybe Tivo would, so you don't end up with a box full of TheSim~1 or QueerE~1.
(This post conver~1 to mixed case for enhanced readab~1.)
that these patents cover FAT32 used in >1GB Flash cards, not the FAT12/FAT16 used on smaller cards.
FAT32 is much more recent and hence is still covered under patents, and it's not one of those "out for 8 years, starts enforcing on the nineth"
it's probably closer to, out for 5 years but never used by anything other than the owner, now other people are starting to use it, so it's going to be enforced.
a much less evil method of patent enforcement than other corporations have done.
>> Litigation: The Business Model of the Future!(TM)
So is Micro$oft is going to sue Samba for the use of long file names. And I thought the SCO lawsuit was bad.
First they'll start with something like FAT which has been around since Win 3.x and has secured patents. Then, they'll go after all the open source people that make use of it or provide compatibility, but without a license, similar to how SCO is operating. With precendents set, NTFS abusers and coders will be next followed by groups who offer protocol compatibility such as the Samba Team... protocols like SMB, etc.
The basic idea is this: if MS is going to start losing money and market share to better or improving open source OS's (linux) and apps (open office), then they'll make up the difference through IP suits. Only they aren't going to wait til they're broke like SCO did. They're starting early.
Just think of all those zillions of "MS formatted" floppies sitting on shelves. At one time, MS encouraged this practice so people would use Windows. Now they're biting the hands that helped feed them.
Would they have tried that when AOL was carpet-bombing us with floppies?
Good question, eh?
...at the discretion of the Patent holder. If they weren't actively enforcing the Patent for an extended period of time (Like this situation), they generally may not demand back royalties owed or damages, but they can demand you discontinue the use if you don't pay future royalties and they can choose what the royalties are, including not being able to choose to pay them (i.e. you don't get to use this again until the Patent expires or is invalidated for some reason...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Is this what that miserable failure had in mind when he invented internet.
It only applies to consumer electronics that ship with a FAT filesystem on their harddrives.
Hrm, what wildly popular consumer electornic device ships with a hard drive that is FAT-formatted, but doesn't currently ship all of its revinue to Redmond?
iPod, welcome to the world of the Microsoft Tax.
- The Amazina Llama
WTF. He's right!
Have the device format it or require a pc to format it. Treat it just like a floppy.
I'm kinda glad Microsoft is doing this. I like to see big corporations get bigger through extortion. It reminds me of my childhood in Sicily. Ah... the bullies and their "families."
I mean, according to Matthew Szulik, more advanced OSes are inappropriate for the casual computer user because you have to futz around with things like filesystem drivers:
"I would argue that from the device-driver standpoint and perhaps some of the other traditional functionality, for that classic consumer purchaser, it is my view that (Linux) technology needs to mature a little bit more." Szulik gave an example of his 90-year-old father going to a local retailer in order to purchase a computer with Linux: "We know painfully well what happens. He will try to get it installed and either doesn't have a positive experience or puts a lot of pressure on your support systems," he said.
So now that you'll either not "have a positive experience or put[s] a lot of pressure on [y]our support systems" trying to install a digital camera or flash media under Windows, do you think that Microsoft will have to drop their desktop distribution?
Carthago delenda est!
XFS is a journaled file system created by SGI. Its primary use is for *huge* files, such as the kind typcially used in multimedia work, and very large databases. It has nothing to do with DRM, and is certainly not suitable for embedded devices or small to medium size files, such as those stored on floppies, usb sticks, etc.
Who would have thought....
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
Were any of those early enough to be prior art?
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Given that almost all cards out there are formatted with FAT and given that most devices use FAT, a device manufacturer would have a VERY hard time using a non-fat filesystem. Take a camera, for example. We've come to expect the ability to pull the card out of the camera and stick it into a desktop reader, or hand it over to the photo processing place for prints. If the manufacturer switches to EXT2, Minix, or whatever, they loose that compatiblity.
Once they have established the pattern of charging a license for the FAT filesystem, they will also approach other OS vendors (outside of embedded devices) for a license fee.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
My granma was so FAT, I tell you!
So yeah, we have prior art on that patent.
(boom boom chink!)
Yes your honor, We have no plans to be a monopoly, were just going to license everything to everyone.
Wow. Macs can access hardware without driver software? Cool trick.
Fortunately for us Windows users, the drivers for stuff that follows a standard USB or Firewire device profile have been builtin to the OS for about 4 years.
now every manufacturer of media & portable devices must pony up at most $250K. Given the number of manufacturers, this will be a considerable amount. I hope the consumer electronics manufacturers will band together and create their own filesystem (or just re-use a free one). In effect, giving MSFT the finger.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
It'll be very difficult for them to win if this is challenged. Not enforcing patent rights for 5-7 years and then having a change of heart doesn't work. If you don't enforce your patent rights through litigation in a timely manner once you're aware they're being violated, you lose those rights. MS still has the patent, they just can't enforce it anymore.
I mean, the article states that they're licensing FAT16, not FAT32. Wasn't FAT16 limited to 2 gigs partitions? FAT may be fine for current consumer flash cards under 2Gigs, but since 1 gigs cards are already out, it's a matter of time before 2 gigs come out, and then 4. Licensing FAT16 seems like a dumb idea to me. FAT32 is better in the long run.
Unless, , they want companies to license FAT16, then go "Oh f***" and license FAT32 when 4 gig flash cards come out.
impose a 25 cent tax on all uses of long file names. It's not our fault you used our crappy old method of file naming and had to convert when we forced you to
impose a .0095 cent tax on all uses of 'Mircorsoft', 'micro$oft', and 'microshaft' through out the web. To protect our intellectual uh doohickies
impose a .0098 cent tax an all uses of the colors red, blue yellow and green Our paint program developed those colors!
impose a .002 cent tax on the use of the the adverbs 'today', 'where'; verbs 'do','want','go' and pronoun 'you'. We thought of this phrase first DAMNIT!!
Western digital uses DR-DOS http://www.drdos.com/products.html to format their hard drives,and judging by their website it looks like competition is really heating up in the pay - to - format arena I wonder how many devices you are allowed to format with your data / lifeguard tools?
Thank you for your excellent reading. This should definitely be modded up. However, I'd like to add a couple of comments.
First, by your reading, it seems that only VFAT is affected. This is bad, but not as bad as it could be.
Second, some other people have posted that the license applies only to embedded devices. This has nothing to do with the infringing or noninfringing nature of Linux. All this means is that the only group Microsoft has offered to license to *legally* use long filenames on FAT is the embedded folks. This means that there is currently no option (if indeed the VFAT kernel module infringes, as it appears to do) for Linux folks to have uninfringing use. There is no requirement for Microsoft to provide such a licensing option, and they may sue for damages regardless of whether or not they provide such an option.
Third, my reading is that your argument about the patents being invalid due to prior art is incorrect. The relevant section is USC 35, Part II, Chapter 10, Section 205. The relevant clauses are (a) and (b). (a) does not apply because it only relates to prior art as produced by others. (b) does not apply because it refers to *public* use or sale -- not a couple of MSDN members or whoever got to play with Chicago betas. Windows 95 was released in August, 1995. This is less than a year before the patent application in April, 1996.
May we never see th
Of course this is stupid, bad, mean, blah blah blah. You guys have already covered that. What's interesting to me though is that Microsoft needs device makers to make devices that favor (or atleast are compatible with) windows. iPOD (used to) prefer Macs, and so someone in love with iPods would probably prefer a mac. If Microsoft discourages manufacturers from making devices compatible with windows, they will end up hurting their popularity (duh.)
no comment
Limiting the ability of others to write FAT-compatible software would be a bad strategic move on MS's part - anyone who currently has another OS interoperating with Windows via FAT may be just as likely to ditch Windows as they are the "other" OS.
Part of being a monopoly is that your market share is so great that everything "must" interoperate with them. On the whole, if you forced people to choose between either Windows or Linux (No VMware/Wine/NFTS/FAT support, because they all use patented MS algorithms/trusted computing to encrypt all), a lot more would be forced to stay on Windows than they'd lose to Linux. And the lock-in would be pretty damn near permanent. Microsoft would just love it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The computer I'm typing this comment on is a Mac, which dual-boots Mac OS X (native filesystems: HFS+, UFS) and Linux (native filesystems: ext[23], XFS, ReiserFS). Neither OS had stable read/write support for the other's filesystems at the time I installed, but everything can write VFAT, so I allocated a 20GB VFAT (FAT32) filesystem (~/Storage in Linux, /Volumes/STORAGE in MacOS) for bulk file storage that should be shared between OSs.
/home and ~/Storage onto HFS+, if I can work out how to keep UIDs in sync between the two OSs.)
...), although in this case VFAT has the additional advantage that it's the "second-best" filesystem for NT anyway.
(Linux supposedly now has reliable read/write HFS+ support, but I haven't tried it yet; if it is indeed reliable, I might migrate
The same solution would be useful on a dual-boot WinNT/Linux PC (NTFS vs
(In fact, my PC still dual-boots Win98/Linux, so NTFS isn't an option for me anyway - I might consider upgrading to whatever the latest version is when a lot of software starts to require NT, or I might just run Linux and MacOS exclusively.)
because you've revealed it to the world as far as the law is concerned.
The whole point of NDAs is that you have not revealed it to the public from a legal standpoint.
Is there any other reason for NDAs to even exist?
I believe uses their own filesystem called MFS and ext2 partitions, 'cos its a Linux box at heart
So many people have been using the FAT for so long, could this be seen as diluted?
When was the patent issues? when does it expire?
Couldn't this be seen as anitcompetitve, and thus an abuse of there monopoly power?
Clearly, they wan't to kill FAT, but Ironically, it wont.
The devices that use the media will just format the disk as FAT.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That was the intent, and I suspect to some extent it still works that way. But I suspect that there's far more happening of a different sort with patents - and that's the creation of a club. Remember the phrase, "stand on the shoulders of giants?" Well, the shoulders are patented. If you want to stand on those shoulders and reach higher, you have to let the giant reach that high, too.
In essence, patents have created a club, and while you can still get a patent and make money, you probably can't disrupt an existing technology, because you need to license existing technology to make your patent work, and the most likely license term is to cross-license your technology back to the would-be disruptees. They can either take advantage of the technology, or you'll find that the license prevents you from disrupting their business - unless you're excessively lucky.
I recently heard about a guy with some sort of chemical/drug/food (forget which) patent that's running out. NONE of the industry has agreed to license it, they're just waiting for it to expire. In the meantime he's losing all of his development and attempted marketing money. Maybe he was asking absurd terms, maybe he deserved them, but the industry felt we could get along without the new product, the guy couldn't commercialize without more money than he had, so they could afford to wait.
Come to think of it, I've got a friend in the very same situation.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Can MS retroactively charge AOL for all those floppies they once sent out?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The patents cited in the ms article are all for the way FAT-32 supports long file names. Although most appeared to filed AFTER the release of Win 95 and FAT-32. Can anybody confirm this?
So older versions of FAT don't appear to effected but anything that uses FAT-32 does.
Rob Conley
I have a portable digital audio player in my pocket. It's called a Sony Ericsson P800 phone. It is also a portable digital video player and a portable digital still camera.
It also uses VFAT. In fact, the 1.2 million Symbian phones shipped last quarter all had VFAT. That comes to $300,000, just over the maximum license fee.
When phones begin to ship in volume with PicSel's browser, perhaps Microsoft may take issue with it's sub-pixel antialiasing under the auspices of their ClearType licensing, despite what Steve Gibson may claim.
You got a PHAT ASS! ... I mean FAT partition.
Seriously though, who the hell in their right mind would license this? It's an antiquated filesystem.
JFFS is an unacceptable alternative. The two filesystems have wildly different goals. FAT is simple and can be implemented in a small amount of space.
Doh. I misread "JFFS" as "JFS".
The grandparent post is probably correct, though I'm still not sure whether FAT and JFFS have sufficiently similar goals.
May we never see th
You start using a free file format, and include a conversion tool in the software the consumer will install on the PC.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I see this as the final nail in the coffin for floppy disks. For at least a decade now floppies have come pre-formatted with FAT. It takes forever in computertime to format a blank disk, so switching to unformatted disks is not a viable option, and adding $.25 to the cost of each disk (i.e. device) is also cost prohibitive when storage is selling at pennies [or less] per megabyte.
Assuming this goes forward (and short of a state's Attornies General getting injunctions to stop it - I imagine it will) the floppy format will be dead by mid-2004 at the latest. If MS doesn't intend that as the outcome, then pricing for the license should be based on the amount of storage being formatted. At say $.001/Mb the additional cost for a floppy would be just $.014, and 256Mb flash drives would be treated about the same as the MS proposed pricing: $.256 more each.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
this is. MS is using their monopoly unfairly, patent protection or no. This should be fought on those grounds and should win. Anyone with big enough pockets to do so?
Microsoft also announced that they had also placed a patent on look and feel of the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). They pointed out that they had invested a large amount of money in order to provide the best end-user experience to all customers.
I'm surprised MS hasn't been licensing FAT all along, It's always been proprietary.
The license is so cheap that I doubt it will drive any but the most fly-by-night vendors into the open source camp. The cost of switching to a new format might well amount to more than the $250,000 maximum payment to MS. The per-unit license of 25 cents will be passed on to consumers,
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
This one's a poster child for fighting software patents. I hope somebody with deep enough pockets decides to fight... but my sense is that anybody who's based a product upon FAT has probably got their own dubious software patents to product, and therefore would rather settle than fight.
Welcome to the second Microsoft Tax!
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
You would have to pay $10 per unit per filename character...
Let's see, 8.3 - you owe us $110!
Oh wait, and $15 extra for the '.'
That's not an NT file-system driver, it's just a program that can read files and looks like Explorer. A proper driver is an NT IFS (installable file-system) driver, like this one.
Nope, Linux has its own file system for swap space. I don't know the details, but I assume it's written to facilitate treating the swap space as an extension to RAM, rather than as a file storage area.
Microsoft is in the business of making money. Apparently, they saw the use of cross-platform sharing via flash devices using the FAT filesystem as a threat to the Microsoft monopoly.
Since they cannot stop third-party manufacturers from developing devices compatible with the FAT filesystem, they decided to just make a few thousand bucks off of them by enforcing their patents on the FAT filesystem.
Clever, if not greedy.
This will put the poorer manufacturers out of business, because there's no way you can sell a flash drive unformatted and expect the consumer to format it.
This is why letting one company become the sole innovator (in Joe Windowsuser's eyes) is bad for the tech industry. The anti-trust trials in the US showed that the US Government is powerless and slow to stop this monopilized stifling of innovation. Instead, Congress should open a Federal-level organization devoted to open source software development, including operating system and office suite software, then let taxes feed the organization.
At then, we'd have another large-sized innovator to put Microsoft on alert, and in check.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
When IBM tried to push MCA and PS/2, the world rallied around Compaq, who stuck with PC/AT. FAT is not exactly rocket science; it's easy to make a far better file system as a standard. Use of UFS is also there.
Can memory cards not be arbitrarily formatted by users in the same way as floppies and hard drives?
Seems like a great opportunity if you're a hot-shot programmer.
Write a file system optimized for digital camera/mp3 type applications. Small, light, easily used from firmware. Add a driver for windows that installs fast through the web via ActiveX. Think Macromedia Flash. "Don't got it? Click yes, boom, now you do."
Get it working real smooth and consumer friendly. Promote a bit and wait for Sony or one of its smaller cousins to buy you.
I will soon have access to enough wireless transmission of power that I will be able to similtaneously shift every magnetic drive's zeroes and ones to all zeroes are all ones. It is time to give up on electronics as they will only hasten our downfall.
The FAT file system format was never patentable to begin with, since there was nothing particularly novel about it when it was created. What's more, it has been in use for more than 20 years (the lifetime of a patent) and nothing about it was patented within a year of its implementation and release to the public. So, Microsoft has no rights here. Its claims to the contrary are absurd.
It surprises me - the number of people who don't know about the embedded controllers in a lot of flash cards - they do wear leveling for you - and in fact they hide the physical sector allocation from you completely so you can't even tell if two bytes are in the same block. Your comment is valid for traditional flash, but not modern removable flash cards. JJFS et al aren't needed for those.
Well, well.
Personally, it looks to me like MS is trying to capitalize on these patents now, after many years of not enforcing them.
Are patents like copyright? In copyright law, if you don't enforce your copyright (a.k.a. 'a xerox machine',) you lose the copyright. Something can just 'fall' into the public domain if the copyright holder doesn't actively protect their copyright.
Can patents go into the public domain the same way? MS hasn't truly enforced this patent, ever. Floppy disks, hard drives, MP3 players, flash media, etc, have all come with FAT formatting pre-applied as long as you've been able to buy them. (I know I had 5.25" floppies that came pre-formatted in FAT back in the mid-'80s.) Because they never chose to enforce their patents before, can these patents just be declared void?
To me, this looks like MS trying to force everyone to NTFS, to lock out other OSes. (For example, if my new digital camera uses NTFS on its flash memory, my Mac will have problems with it.) As far as I can tell, MS still isn't licensing NTFS, though. It wouldn't surprise me to see another licensing announcement soon, licensing NTFS either at no cost, or for less than FAT.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Isn't this what they tried with the GIF format? Make it free for years, then decide they want to make money off their nice little patent? We'll be manufacturers go to other formats soon, just like people started using different formats for graphics and the like. Isn't that part of what made jpeg popular? Well, besides the fact that it's smaller, it doesn't have the tax on it.
I just can't imagine how long it will be before we start seeing digital cameras and other assorted devices using with UFS, EXT2, or whatever. I just hope they're smart about it, and figure out to use a common system, rather than all using their own home-grown systems. Isn't that where we started with digital cameras, where they all had their own special image format, on built-in storage, where we *HAD* to download through serial or USB cables through their own program..
Prepare for the new wave of new types of media. Microsoft just made CF, MMC, SD, etc, etc, obsolete.
Maybe this time they're just getting a bit too greedy. It's not costing them anything to let people continue to use this ancient format, but now they want to make the quick buck. Ok, a few million bucks, but still...
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
yay! does that mean we'll have *nix-based digital cameras now?
I wonder when they will pattent .txt files? Because THEY design it !
Or maybe i'll pattent some mathematical equations they are also intelectual property and anyone will pay me for using pitagoras equation ?!
Just discovered this link in a comment over at Groklaw. Section 1.e. of this document would seem to indicate that MS has already granted the right to use FAT for hardware and operating systems:
It doesn't seem like they could actually sue anyone for using FAT under this covenant, which is copyrighted 2000.
Did anyone happen to catch this little phrase?
" * Pricing for other device types can be negotiated with Microsoft.
It sounds to me like the digital camera market is a "foot-in-the-door" strategy, while the requirement for licensing will eventually encompass anything that uses the FAT file system.
Personally, I'd be willing to buy a digital camera that's just a little less convenient in order to take this and rub it in Billy's face. In other words, give me a driver that will read a NON-MS file system on a digital camera, and as long as it works, I'm good to go.
Did anyone read the original link?
They are offering a license for 25 cents per unit with a MAXIMUM for big companies of 250K.
Without getting into the merits of the claims themselves, as far as licensing goes, that's a very reasonable fee.
While Microsoft's patents on something as broken and trivial as FAT are silly, they are presumably valid. The more serious problem here isn't Microsoft, it's other companies that didn't do their homework before choosing a Microsoft "standard". Maybe once it costs them significant amounts of money, they'll start paying more attention. But $250k may not be enough.
And there are a few open alternatives that even Windows understands out of the box: ISO9660 and UDF come to mind (although Windows may not apply them to flash devices by default).
FAT is over 20 years old ....the patent is no longer valid.
Bill Gates can suck my cock!
Some have suggested ext2 as an alternative. How about ISO filesystem found on CD's? With its long filename extension (as opposed to Joilet which is the PC specific extension) would it not be a good universal format? It is readable on all platforms that read CD's.
What I don't know is how good is it for something that changes like flash memory or microdrives. CD's don't change a lot, and if they do it is either in a multisession mode or with complete erasure and rewriting of the data. Of course this could be more a product of the media and not the filesystem. Anybody know more?
If everyone started using HFS or HFS+ we'd end up in the same situation when Apple sees a chance to make money by doing the same thing that M$ is doing.
Apple, like all other companies these days loves Patents. Its seems to be the popular thing to do; offer a product (like FAT) for free and when it catches on, charge for it. (many forsee the same happening with MP3).
The only way around this is to adopt an Open Source file format. Not only would it make it impossible for an company to do what M$ is doing now but, being Open Source would make all technical data for implementation freely available.
XFS seems like a good choice to me and its Open Source.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
It doesn't even cover FAT32. It only covers the method used to store/retrieve long filenames on a FAT filesystem.
Micro$haft is demanding .25 cents per STANDARD TELEVISION.
A license for manufacturers of certain consumer electronics devices. Pricing for this license is US$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/video players; multifunction printers; electronic photo frames; electronic musical instruments; and standard televisions. Pricing for this license is US$0.25 per unit with a cap on total royalties of $250,000 per licensee. Pricing for other device types can be negotiated with Microsoft.
Excuse the fuck out of me but since when did TV sets begin, or ever, use a FAT??
TV sets were invented many, many years before Billy the THIEF was born.
Someone needs to put a stop to this stupidity.
But at least the small guy can now point to those cases in his defense. The more cases like those that come up the more protected the littly guy will be from threats.
The DMCA really needs a few more years in the courts before it matures. Remember, from a legal standpoint, you can't just look at the original Act itself, you have to look at all the rulings related to it in the courts. Every time there's a court case ruling then that changes the DMCA a little.
It is sorta like the government throwing out a bunch of boards and a sail and saying that this is a boat; it will take you places across water. It's up to the courts to take that and actually make a real boat, meanwhile everybody is complaining that it's horrible because those boards could be used to make spears to kill people.
That's kind of an odd analogy, but I think you get my point. (lame pun alert!)
Aw crap, ninjas!
Because although installing a filesystem driver may be painful on Win98, it's one thousand times worse on solid-state electronics.
I disagree. I write firmware for digital cameras and I'm in the process of switching from SanDisk's old twist on Etc Bin Systems' RTFS to their newer twist on it that supports FAT32. The hardest part of the job is that I've decided to revise how our "imports" system works and shift build configuration from shell variables to makefile variables (for mapping platforms to collections of features).
Actually porting the code is pretty dang easy- a POSIX-like open/close/read/write API at the top adn a bdevsw-like block(s) read/write, device init/info/reset API at the bottom.
The hard part is 1) getting everyone to agree on a patent-unencumbered filesystem (though standards bodies & extensible standards for this already exist: DCF/DPOF/EXIF/PMA/etc.) 2) getting everyone to implement it
If we switch from the Mass Storage USB class to the Still Image Device Class (PTP (picture transfer protocol) over USB) then the media format will only matter when you take the card out of the camera & use a media reader.
Canon is already making this transition which is why you can "share" their cameras with Mac OS X 10.3 & take pictures by USB control.
As the camera ASICS speed up, the desire to remove the media to read out pictures will decrease. Right now, my Dazzele Hi-Speed USB 2.0 card reader kills our cameras, but that obstacle can be overcome.
I'd be willing to buy a digital camera that's just a little less convenient in order to take this and rub it in Billy's face.
Admirable. And non-representative of the typical consumer's response.
PS. Slashdot had better not allow editing of posts. That's inimical to a threaded message system. You can't have a coherent discussion if the comment you were replying to can be totally redone, leaving a response floating after it that now seems irrelevant.
If editing is allowed, it should always leave an option to see the earlier version(s)... and if someone responds to the pre-editing version of the post, then that version should be the default one displayed (With a small link going to the new version).
The first thing Slashdot should do to modernize its comment system is to create an official way to quote the preceding message, instead of relying users to manually paste it and insert italic tags.
First of all, I have to say I don't agree with what MS is doing, however it seems perfectly within their rights to do, at least for FAT32. The FAT16 patents should be expired by now, and FAT16 is good for up to 2GB, so this should only really affect new devices >2GB. When said devices come out they probably will come in formatted and unformatted versions, so consumers can have a choice. I haven't purchased floppies in a long time, but as I recall they came in mac, pc, or unformatted at different prices. Did they pay a liscence then, or was it just the production cost of actually formating the disk that made the price different? In the end 25 cents passed on to me, the end user, on a device greater than 2GB seems like no big deal, especialy given the current price of such a thing. As long as they don't use the precedent to then go after other FAT driver implementations in other OS's, I can live with it.
They need to have a Gate$ pic with a pirate hat and an eye patch.
Or maybe a robbers mask and a gun.
Something to represent what a fucking thief this bastard is. The Borg is ok but he's mutated to a lower level than that.
The ROM of every Itanium system out there contains an "EFI partition", a FAT filesystem in ROM, required just for the machine get up to the point where it can start to boot the real OS. I remember hearing a long time ago that this was "donated" by Microsoft. I wonder if it's still "donated."
Keep in mind that the abstracts have zero legal meaning. They are merely a convenience for someone looking for a patent.
The only thing that matters is the claims. These are numbered and at the top of the patent beneath the abstract and references. Claims may be individually invalidated. Microsoft has a number of elements in each claim -- these are lettered with lower-case letters.
To invalidate a claim, you must show that that claim is invalid. To fully invalidate a patent, you must invalidate all claims.
The first patent has four claims.
Each of those claims has elements that go beyond the basic functionality mentioned in the abstract -- they refer to mechanism. I think all of them refer to a checksum, signature, or invisible file. I'm not sure that these mechanisms are used by Rock Ridge.
Finally, if Rock Ridge indeed implements these mechanisms and is the earliest work to do so, we had better be *damned* sure that there was some form of publication of the concepts involved before April 1, 1993 (as the other poster mentioned, this is the filing date of the Microsoft applications). Otherwise, rather than Rock Ridge providing prior art for the Microsoft applications, Rock Ridge itself is infringing on Microsoft patents.
(Note that some industry standards organizations, like the W3C, require members to provide a public license to any IP they own specifically to allow anyone to implement the standard. Rock Ridge is an ISO standard, which does not, to the best of my knowledge, do this, but if it was based on an earlier standard, there may be such a license.
May we never see th
Simple: never use a memory stick larger then 32mb. Why? Then you could partion it in.... ProDOS! Apple ][ FOREVER!
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Could either be the intent or a good side effect that devices like the iPod would decrease the profit margins of Microsoft competitors like Apple.
- Minix is simpler than FAT, and thus requires less code to implement
- Minux use a tree structure and thus performs better than the linked lists used in FAT
- Minix have a cleaner design
- Minix natively supports long filenames without that vfat crap.
Funny that the patents really only covers all the design mistakes.Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I'm sure yaffs developers are overjoyed by this move. Yaffs is now mature, and works on ce and linux devices
/
http://www.aleph1.co.uk/armlinux/projects/yaffs
Norton Desktop for Windows 3/3.1 not only introduced the desktop and windows outside the Program Manager window to Windows, but also introduced a long file names through some sort of hack.
Let's go back through the Patents again with that tidbit in mind...
My statement still stands on the 6,286,013 Patent- it's not applicable execpt in the narrowest of terms, i.e. sitting on top of a BIOS/BDOS interrupt driven disk access, x86-32 system. It's just a wee-bit too specific to be something they can ask for royalties on for most things out there. (Even though they've got the brass balls to try all the same...)
The 5,745,902 Patent discusses the process that they use for the LFN->8.3 and 8.3->LFN correlations and keeping it all consistent within the OS. Referring to the Patent text:
One wouldn't get tripped up on this part by simply NOT using a B-tree since they don't allude to any other indexing scheme. They do, unfortunately go on to describe in detail the 8.3 name generation scheme (Otherwise known as name mangling...) and their methodology for avoiding conflicts...
However, based on how the whole scheme works (which isn't covered by this Patent...), it's concievable to come up with a different naming algorithm that would work that didn't touch on their algorithm. If that's possible, then you don't get tripped up on that Patent as it is an explicit statement of how MS does the task- if you can come up with an alternate method that does the same thing (or close enough that Microsoft's code doesn't notice that you're not doing it "right"...), you're in the clear on that part of the Patent. I suspect that this is the case, based on my studies on the VFAT scheme.
Now, the real sticking point is the other two. They discuss handling long and short filenames in a common database. The real question is, is it a common database? If it's not, the Patents, while lovely in and of themselves, would not cover the exact situation or a portion thereof, thereby allowing you to avoid issues with them.
So, one would want to answer that question to determine if things look bad for people wanting to implement VFAT systems (We'll get to possible Prior Art issues in a bit...). In order to do that, one would have to do a rough analysis of VFAT to see how it's done up.
Referring to a developer's notes on VFAT (http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/gchunt/vfat.html), we can see that Microsoft has hacked in a scheme to wedge the LFN into the current directory structure entries, 13 characters of the LFN at a time. Therefore, without prior art involved or
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
What about the Macintosh extensions for Netware 3.1? I used them back around 1991 or so. Allowed the same thing, a single file with both a Mac name and an 8.3 name.
And why the old and boring and annoying recursive acronims ?
RMS is annoying enough, thank you.
And seriously: EXT3 to the rescue!
The main reason for having them is to not prevent the Patent filing clock from starting, but to keep people from finding out too early about what you're up to, having people already starting on the attempts to skirt your in progress Patent filing, etc. It's to protect things like Trade Secrets, etc.
All an NDA does is specify the scope of information that will be given, who is supposed to be recieving the same, and penalties for disclosing the information given outside the circle of people so covered. It doesn't make it "not revealed" to other parties. As far as the Patent laws are concerned, it is one year from the first disclosure or publication outside of the Inventor's notes or the Company as a whole- it is considered publication, however limited, even if it's under an NDA.
As a side note, I missed a little detail- the Patent we're talking about may not be invalidated by their disclosure through the pre-Beta. They filed the Patent in question as a continuation of the original filing that was not approved at the time of the filing, exactly 1 year to the day from the original filing that they deliberately killed off. That's legit, in and of itself for at least one pass at it- it's a Patent filing based off of an original one that never got finalized. If there were no breaches prior to the initial filing, the original filing merely counts as the first pubication of the Invention.
Now, having said this, there's possible Prior Art in the Rock Ridge RRIP specification (Part of what is commonly referred to as the Rock Ridge Extentions to the ISO filesystem...) as they manage an 8.3 filename and a long type filename transparently in the same database structure.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"It mounted the drive without problem and was able to read most of the contents (some of it was still gone but I was able to recover my work from that day at least). So in this case Linux was better at handling NTFS than Win2K was."
This is bullshit. NTFS under Win2K was probably mounted RW and performing integrity checks on the filesytem. I would rather NTFS stop now + than continue reading a corrupt filesystem getting more corrupted(i.e. some type of journalling code kicking in even though you just wanna read).
Linux use of NTFS is done using reverse-engineering, and they may have missed integrity checking + it's mounted RO so no harm can be done.
In your case, Linux wasn't better, you were "just lucky".
Kashif
Is it so they can drop support, or is it so they can drop the one reliable method of moving on-machine files between Windows and Linux?
FAT compatilibity is stunningly important to Linux. Assuming much Linux migration begins as dual-boot, FAT stitches the two sides of the box together. FAT is how we read/write those silly digital cameras across platforms. FAT is how we read/write those silly memory keys across platforms. FAT is how we read/write diminutive floppies across platforms.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
256 MB cards are common for digital cameras nowadays, but many people use bigger. 1GB IMB Microdrives are commonly used by advanced users and pros. We've seen even larger CF announced recently (2 GB, 4 GB).
"I've got to stop masturbating! It makes me too lazy! Stop it, Albert. Stop it." -- Albert Einstein
Stick a USB pen drive into a Windows XP machine and it loads the drivers and gives it a drive letter.
Companies have always loved cutting the FAT. It surprises me that they haven't sooner.
If I recall correctly, IBM developed and released a competing and technically better alternative to VFAT as part of OS/2 and the battle between Win95 and OS/2 in the middle 1990's. Both were extensions to DOS FAT to allow long filenames. So... IBM could now release its long filename extension to FAT to the public domain and companies could start using it instead with probably as minimal trauma as could be if MS is going to force everyone to reconsider the usage of VFAT.
IANAL, but I wouldn't think it does directly. The files on a Samba volume are stored in the file system format of the server, ext3/JFS for example. The client software is the actual OS of the client PC, usually a Windows 9x variant. The end result is that you (typically) have a Windows 9x PC reading its local file system or attached device (the FAT/FAT32 access) and sending and retreiving data through the network stack(s) to the server where the data is translated and stored as etc3/JFS or similar. The only way Samba could be affected is if it bypassed the kernel and file system software to access a pluged in device directly. I'm pretty sure that code doesn't exist within the boundaries of the project.
Arrest the head of the US Trademark and Patent Office, his eager-to-please examiners and send them all to Camp X-Ray until we hold a slashdot poll to decide what to do with them. Boiled. Baked. Sauted.
If you read a little further down in the patent below the filing date, you will see that the patent was a continuation of application number 41,497 which was filed on April 1, 1993.
Therefore, it would have had to be out in the open before April 1, 1992 which is well before it was availible to ISV's as far as I know.
"I have a porkchop, you have a porkchop. I have a veal, you have a veal".
A patent attorney is not a lawyer either. To be a patent attorney you must be an engineer and then do a patent attorney degree type course. No law degree is required.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Ah soon we will see compact flash with the greath UNFORMATTED Label.
other file systems. is NTFS similarly protected?
/. article).
NTFS is certainly very well protected, since there is no full independant implementation, even though it would be very usefull. The latest trend for NTFS support on Linux is to use the native Windows driver through a wrapper (see recent
Anyway, the success of FAT is due to its simplicity. It doesn't support much, but seems to be very lightweight and easy to implement.
So is there an equivalent? Ext3 or ReiserFS, like NTFS, are probably far too sophisticated for memory sticks in portable devices and the like.
Ext2?
Is it supported on Mac OS X?
Is there an easy to install driver for Windows machines? (about 2 years ago, it was neither easy to install nor reliable on WinNT)
What else would there be?
In Linux, 'mount' lists lots of supported filesystems. Would one of these be a good candidate?
adfs, affs, coda, coherent, devpts, efs, ext, ext2, hfs, hpfs, iso9660, minix, ncpfs, qnx4, romfs, sysv, udf, ufs, umsdos, xenix, xiafs.
Maybe iso9660? Or one of the others which I don't know?
Of course, just as Microsoft may have assumed, manufacturers could either use FAT and pay up, or sell their media unformatted, in which case the customer needs a M$(-licensed) product to format it to FAT.
However manufacturers will probably want to test an initial write/read cycle, but if (for the sake of quality control) they simply format their media to something else (let's call it FOSFS, the hypothetical Free and Open Source File System
If this has been Microsoft's reasoning, they have neglected to consider another possibility:
On current removable media of 256 megs and up, an entire Linux distribution takes up less than 10% of capacity:
Unless the boot process from USB memory requires more than a rudimentary, non-infringing "allusion to FAT", such media could not just be formatted in an empty FOSFS, but it might rather be sold with preinstalled software such as this (compiled without FAT support of course): Cameras etc. could switch to the new FOSFS immediately, for PCs would not need to support it "out of the box", as the removable media itself would actually "be its own driver" (and media viewer, and provide network connectivity, etc.).
In this case, such "not-so-blank media" should certainly bear the penguin logo as a "seal of quality".
To justify adding a Creative Commons mark next to it, one could even fill the remaining space with some free and open (motion) pictures and/or audio to be played on first use.
Microsoft itself would have to catch up and release Windows support for the FOSFS before everyone sends and serves pictures from some sort of "USB Linux".
If only one major manufacturer of removable memory takes an approach like this, at M$ the employee who came up with that "bright idea" of a FAT license but failed to see this option may have a hard time explaining...
Oh? My fully-functional 83GB FAT32 partition makes me seriously doubt that.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
...Microsoft is doing the world a favor. The File Allocation Table file system REEKS!!! Maybe this will force people to take a look at much better (and free as in liberty and free as in beer) file systems. PLEASE!!!
I've never yet seen a piece of hardware that didn't need drivers installed... Just adding one more file to the list of 20 or so needed to get your new (camera, flash drive, external HD etc.) to work is not a real hassle.
Can they ship the NTFS fs free? If so, i bet they're trying to make these sort of devices windows onlt because any mac or linux box cna raf a fat filesystem perfectly, but not ntfs.
*Lighter and still as resistant to mindwaves
I realize that there are fairly stringent requirements for creating a proveably reverse engineered product, such as, say, an x86 compatible processor complete with MMX, etc. However, it has been done by more than one company....
So somebody please inform this reverse engineering layman, how exactly is a reverse engineered FAT filesystem layer any different from a reverse engineered processor? Why is FAT suddenly a candidate for licensing and patent infringement, if processors aren't?
... because its blank. So if all the patents relate to long filenames, surely blank formatted media is not covered?
That was a tpyo... I'll try again
Or This, which has a "I just want to download it..." link...
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Source Code is BSD-licensed, it does not have the filesystem size limits that FAT does (which flash card manufacturers will be nearing, sooner rather than later) or the file size limits. It has always had support for long filenames. You do NOT need to ever defragment it (much better than even Ext2/3 in that regard). It is incredibly stable, and does not loose data in any cases (unlike Ext2). It is also very high performance (unlike just about any other filesystem).
Just about every modern OS supports it:
FreeBSD
OpenBSD
NetBSD
Linux
Mac OS (v.X and up)
Tru64/Digital Unix
AIX
HP/UX
Solaris/SunOS
And many more I can't think of off the top of my head. So why doesn't one company put a little effort into writing a Windows filesystem driver (Open Source it and they won't even have to maintain it) and then reaping the rewards of finally having a universal filesystem for their storage devices?
If it wasn't for filesystem incompatibilities, removable hard drives would be a major, major threat to optical media like CD/DVD-Recordables.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
a quarter a pop is not unreasonable, especially with the $250,000 cap. at those prices, it's basically the cost of the compliance sticker on the box.
:( and rest assured, if it's a stored program switch, the file storage is almost guaranteed to be fat-16 or fat-32 compliant.
now, what the hay they are going to charge the data switch manufacturers, whose files to reboot and load the switch cards, are all in FAT on flash or micro hard drives, may be another matter...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I am so happy that microsoft is sueing these cheapy bastards ! Go invent your own formats and software you cheapy bastards ! Way to go microsoft ! :D
I don't grok exactly what this allows for, but it appears to only limit it to what is needed to enable implementaation of Extensible Firmware Initiative Specification v. 1.0. Don't know what that is. Could someone please explain?
I'm paranoid as ****, I know this, but reading the proMicosoft comments has got me wondering: If I was Microsoft I would want to place some Spin Drs on Slashdot and at other traditionally counter-microsoft forums. Has anyone at Slashdot, with access to the historical posts, ever run an analysis to find posters that only ever commented proMicrosoft? If I found a subscriber with 50+ proMicrosoft posts and 0 nonMicrosoft posts I'd be awful suspicious. Just wondering.
What's the problem with using something more like the CD-ROM filesystem for these products? The drivers for that are already installed.
How do you propose they do that without using the FAT filesystem?
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I've already paid $699 to SCO for my Debian, and now I have to pay $0.25 to Microsoft for /usr/src/linux/fs/fat/*?
This is an outrage! Can I sue SCO for selling me that kernel? Oh please tell me I can!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I had the same question and looked this up: (PDF doc)
Doesn't IBM hold IP rights over FAT - having introduced the IBM PC with DOS (distributed on FAT12 [and later FAT16] floppies) in the 80's?
1. Make False Claims
2. Litigate.
3. Profit!!!
SCO CEO Darl McBride will head the organization, bringing with him years of experience in..... oh, never mind.
* A license for removable solid state media manufacturers to preformat the media, such as compact flash memory cards, to the Microsoft FAT file system format, and to preload data onto such preformatted media using the Microsoft FAT file system format.
Why wouldn't a CompactFlash manufacturer have the same rights as someone who sticks a floppy in their computer, formats the floppy, copies some software onto it, then sells the floppy?
Why not.. NTFS is nothing more than OS/2's HPFS but slightly modified..
Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeros.
They're charging a quarter/unit. That's nothing! That's *less* than the government charges me when I buy a flash memory card, consumer electronics device, etc. Its their IP. They can charge for it. If people aren't happy about it, they'll use something else.
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
... which allows me to create unlimited numbers of FAT filesystems on unlimited number of media.
.25 per KM you drive)"
Yes - i bought DOS, Windows, OS2, etc..
Why should i have to pay more money for using those formatted media or for duplicating formatted media with the "dd" command on linux ?
They sold me "format.com" and "diskcopy.com", and now i am supposed to pay for using those ?
Great idea!
"Here's your new car, but now you need to buy a license to drive it ! (250.000 for unlimited driving, or
Wait a minute -- you mean they got a freaking patent on the kludges they used to work around the fact that they used a horribly misguidedly limited filename format in the first place? What ineffable cheek!
In 2006 MS will release Longhorn and the new "revolutionary" WinFS which is based on NTFS and allows you to treat your entire network of devices as a single filesystem structure.
Do you mean the same style of single file system structure that Unix has had for over 30 years? This hardly seems revolutionary to me.
Best post on the subject.
The enemies of Democracy are
There are four types of IP, and all of them are very handled differently: Trademarks, Copyright, Patents, and Trade Secrets.
There is a strong case to be made for failing to enforce a patent for a number of years and then choosing to as ground for loosing one's exclusive rights to that patent, but I don't believe there's ever been any official decision in this matter like there is for trademarks.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's their IP - they have a right to charge for it. Also $0.25 per unit and $250K cap is completely reasonable and in fact downright cheap. Not sure why all the linux fanboys are outraged over this??
Oh, that was ones and zeros.
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
User, group, and permission management is so easy. Very few steps, simple, plenty of tool tips along the way if you need them. Gah. Permissions on Redhat 9 which I'm playing with are just ass in comparison. Not even just with the limitations of the file system, but the gui tools for them. Wow. Just night and day.
I like KDE, and Konqueror is very impressive. But far from filling me with the holy spirit of open source, this experiment made me really appreciate what I have in win2k.
If you take away the hype then .Net and Longhorn are still just vapourware. Standalone MSIE is being dropped. More of the budget is spend on marketing than research and development.
While I appreciate the work on Gnome, I am more curious about the other parts, especially the ones which might show up later in court. Is there writen or otherwise documented permission in those cases?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Like the patent on GIFs gave birth to a new, better, open format (PNG), that's the time for a joint effort to create a new, better, open file system format (but SIMPLE both to implement and use, to allow wide use as FAT).
It does not matter WHAT you have with those people in the way of non-disclosure... the moment you put an improvement in the hands of anyone outside of your company, the clock on the filing date starts ticking because you've revealed it to the world as far as the law is concerned.
Sorry, but that's untrue. If you disclose the details of your invention under non-disclosure agreements, that's neither an enabling disclosure nor putting the invention in the public domain. If MS had appropriately written NDAs in place (and it'd be well worth someone who has a copy of one posting it for analysis), then they haven't necessarily given anything away.
IANAL, but I do work with patents and patent attorneys each and every day.
ben_ the technologist and platform agnostic
Anyway, here's a use of the word "pirate" that fits better than software/audio/video pirates.
Yesterday was the time to do it right. Are we having a REVOLUTION yet?
Yeah, trademark. My mistake.
I'm not a big fan of most IP laws anyway, so I tend to get them confused. (Considering I actually have intellectual property that I should be protecting, I really should learn more about it.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I tried to post this as a reply yesterday, but couldn't get to the site after spending my time typing, then I lost what I typed, etc blah.
:)
Anyway, it seems to me that we could also use something like Amiga FFS or PFS (with the appropriate drivers.) Sorry, couldn't resist.
But seriously, will the licensing only cover the manufacture of media formatted in FAT, or the media and FAT-capable devices? In the case of the former, just distribute unformatted media and require it be formatted by a device or PC before use.
But why not use something like an ISO format and make the systems use the media like a CD-ROM. Would work, wouldn't it?
Or worse yet for Microsoft, the development of a free/open filesystem (oh wait, there are a few already, huh?) that once proliferated, Microsoft would be forced to implement. Remember USB2.0? Not available in the first release of XP, then finally MS says "oh, okay... it's in use enough, we'll support it natively."
Now for something really off the rocker. It seems to me that this case would fall under the same cases of brand names being so universally identified with a product that all products are generically refered to with that brand name. For example, Kleenex for tissues, Rollerblades for in-line skates, Velcro for hook-and-loop fasteners, etc.
FAT has enjoyed such a ubiquitous use for so long that it has become the generic filesystem of choice. It would seem damn anti-industry-social to suddenly start charging for it.
They sound more like crack dealers. The first 20 years are free, but then you have to pay for it. The difference being, of course, that crack dealers are up-front with this
First UniSys and GIF, now Microsoft and FAT.
Another up-moderated article has comments to this effect (I didn't notice the continuation detail...). However, having said this, one should note that the details of the Patent in question have a specification that predates it. The Rock Ridge filesystem extentions to the ISO-9660 file system describes the exact same thing (A method for doing short and long filenames by way of a common database so that they could both be used transparently and could be maintained simultaneously) and the RRIP specification document that describes this scheme was published in 1991, some 1-2 years prior to the filing date for the initial Patent filing.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A use of the Invention outside of the Inventor or his Employer constitutes an offer for sale or gift thereof, regardless of the disclosure conditions the party recieving the gift or sale since they are not parties to the Company by way of the agreement (These agreements are SPECIFIC about this sort of thing, by the way...).
It's kind of moot anyway. The Patent in question was a continuation (something I missed- it's why you're supposed to consult a Patent attorney, BTW...) and therefore had a prior art start date of April 24, 1993. However, the Rock Ridge RRIP specification for the ISO-9660 filesystem describes a largely identical (by the reading of Microsoft's actual Patent claims- this one's nicely broad) scheme that implements short (i.e. 8.3) filenames in the same database as long filenames (i.e. POSIX 256 character names...) for the purposes of transparently supporting long filenames on systems that would and providing the regluar means for accessing the short ones on systems that don't understand the extentions. While it remains to be determined that this is, in fact, Prior Art, it's likely to be so and it was initially published by the Rock Ridge group in 1991, some 1-2 years prior to the filing by Microsoft on all of that.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I love how I get modded down as troll just because I express an opinion that's not mainstream. Slashdot: News for Robots. Opinions don't matter.
Aw crap, ninjas!
Not super easy to find on google since there are so many other meanings for PTP.
The one you want is Picture Transfer Protocol.
http://ptp.sourceforge.net/
this story IMHO furthers the argument that Redmonds current stance of looking the other way while their valuable .net (api and IP) is embraced by the mono projoct is really just a.... grand conspiracy to cripple the free software movement from within, by covertly embedding an unnecessary, yet seductively useful, patented technology in the very heart of the linux operating system's second most popular desktop environment
...yeah i know -1 troll (but its still true)
Before adopting WHATWG, read the moonlight.NET EULA [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/msnovellcollab/moonlight.mspx]
For a brief summary of related infomration, see the Wikipedia article on File Allocation Table.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
How sad and depressing your life must be...chasing my ass around Slashdot. I think you have a crush on me...
Keep up the good work.
Or better yet, get a life you LOSER! I ain't goin' nowhere, and I sure as hell bet that you got an appointment with a vocational advisor regarding some manual labor options...
Try this >>
You're in your parent's basement, right?
1. Lift your fat ass out of your chair.
2. Walk ten feet to your bedroom's door.
3. Open said door.
4. Carefully insert your small testicles near the strike plate. Don't miss those little buggers, now.
5. Slam the door repeatedly 'til you have safely removed your ability to reproduce -- thereby sparing the rest of us of your RETARDED progeny.
Look on the bright side, you can have sex without getting your mom pregnant.
Oooooooooh...that's gotta hurt...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Wow, that *article* was the only steaming peice of shit I saw. I think enough Slashbots replied to that topic...Thank god your a *nix guy at least...my level of respect for you has gone off the charts :)
I don't have it in me to battle tonight...sorry.
Have a merry X-Mas.
- Fucking Stupid Cocksucking Fanboy
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON