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Microsoft FAT Licensing Plan - No Big Deal?
prostoalex writes "InternetNews.com describes the reaction to Microsoft's decision on FAT licensing. It doesn't look like the company is expecting to make any significant money out of licenses (there's also a cap of $250K, so none of the big guys will have to pay millions to Microsoft). It also doesn't look like Linux companies are stressed over this decision. "We are only accessing FAT32 file systems, not using them. This licensing program is of little interest to SuSE", a Novell/SuSE spokesperson said."
For things like flash drives, and other portable storage devices FAT is good because it is pretty universally supported by most operating systems.
They're licensing FAT32 which isn't that old, in reality.
It's also very, very simple to speak.
And, it's coming into use as the filesystem of choice for digital cameras and memory cards to use (because of it's simplicity.)
Windows can read it out of box; so can Linux; OSX probably can too. That's all major OSes right there, with no drivers needed.
It's not great, but it's simple...and MS invented it...one of the few good things they've come up with, I'd say (Windows XP and Server 2003 being the others.)
Before anybody chimes in with yet another "patents aren't trademarks and don't have to be defended as vigorously" comment, I'd like to remind readers of the doctrine of laches, which states that a plaintiff who harms the defendant by delaying legal action (such as by submarining a patent for years) may not be able to recover damages for infringements that occurred prior to bringing the lawsuit.
I suspect Microsoft current trend of licensing every protocol and file format they possibly can is not a small thing.
IANAL, yet I have the sneaky feeling the terms of those licenses preclude GPL products from using protocols or file formats covered by them, *even those licensed for free*.
As to whether or not those licenses are necessary is a great question. Do you really need a license to read an XML file? According to microsoft, you "may", since "Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.".
Worry.
A lot of peripherals like digital cameras have media that is pre-formatted as FAT-16, and use FAT-16 for storage.
For those of you too lazy or of poor reading comprehension skills...
FAT is an old time file system created in the days of DOS. Its very simple, requiring little overhead in computation and space. Modern file systems are much more efficient at large media sizes, but for your floppies, flash cards and other small portable media, FAT works really, really well since you don't need a beefy device processor to handle it, and its simple enough to create the software to work with it that any competant OS programmer could write a FAT wrapper.
Microsoft is NOT charging for FAT itself. Most people for the past 20 years have reverse engineered FAT because it is very simple. It is widespread, virtually every widely used OS supports it. They're not trying to squeeze money from any of these people.
What they are charging for is their own implementation of FAT. Since they did in fact create the standard, presumably a microsoft licensed FAT implementation will be entirely compatible with FAT since they give you the code and official specs to base your system around. This is what they are charging for. Nothing else.
Now for those who are going to ask "but why would someone pay when you can find those reverse engineered specs easily...". Well, thats a business decision. Do you trust those specs enough? Or "just to be safe" do you want to pay microsoft for their guaranteed implementation?
And thats all this is about. Really, honestly, a non-issue.
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Here are a few benefits on face value...
- Level 1 support of ISO-9660 would kick you back to the days of 8.3 style file names. Level 2 and 3 would get you up to 32 characters, but that still isn't on-par with modern OSes.
- You'd need to go to Level 3 in order to fragment files, but then you run into non-support in older OSes.
- ISS-9660 has some character limitations in file names, which means a Windows user would be forced to rename certain files when dragging them over from their HD. With FAT32 supported, such glitches are impossible.
Forget about using Joliet... that's belongs to Microsoft too.
I agree with your statement that the canonical implementation has some value, though.
With great power comes great fan noise.
If you don't defend your patent with due diligance, (say, wait 15 years to sue someone) you can run into legal difficulties.
If you wait 15 years to sue someone after you know about their specific use, yes, you might have some issues in that specific case. That's not to say, however, that you can't still sue someone else who is just starting to use the technology just because you waited on a different party's usage.
The cases are different because in the former you're knowingly allowing them to become dependant on the technology you hold rights to without informing them of your claim; there's a variety of estoppel, IIRC, which can apply in that situation. There's no reason, however, why the patent can't still be enforced against a different party whose usage has not been hitherto overlooked; patents, unlike trademarks, need not be defended to be valid.
The fee is 25c per unit sold, capped at $250,000/year. If you don't sell one million units of whatever the hell it is you're selling per year, you aren't going to be forking over 250k.
Well if you use non-retarded memory like say most CF storage then it's not a problem because the flash cells are never physically rewritten the same way twice. This keeps things like the beginning of the cells from wearing out while the later portions are never touched. For MMC and some other dump flash varients this logic has to be done in the controlling device rather than the memory itself.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
My understanding is that modern design flash devices do internal mapping to avoid this issue. e.g. just because you write to block 00003 doesn't mean that you've written to physical block 00003.
What your saying *is* true for CD-RW / DVD-RW media, where the device does not remap blocks on the fly and each sector has a very limited lifespan (CD-RW was 1000 writes IIRC).
I had a conversation with one of their licensing officers as I was afraid my 10-a-year GPS logger project was in danger. He explained this was an encouragement to have everyone implement FAT32 and LFN the same way, by using their reference design. All this to prevent incompatible implementations down the road.
Microsoft's fear is that a large camera or MP3 player manufacturer 'gets it wrong' and MS is blamed for things not working correctly. MS then has to invest in a work-around, handle patches, bad press etc..
The license comes with source code for a reference implementation, so it will save manufacturers time and R&D cost.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
This license is for FAT, not FAT32 which is a different format covered by different patents.
As such it is virtually irrelevant to the general computing field these days and really only applies to those manufacturers who supply preformated storage devices, most of whom use good, old fashioned, DOS era FAT.
KFG
That was my first thought, but the license (referenced by the previous article) appears to only apply to solid state media, not hard drives.
I've easily taken more than 100,000 images with my digital cameras. I've shot 29,892 sofar this year. My guess is I'll take another 1,000 to 1,500 by year's end. Just because you can't see yourself taking that many photographs that doesn't mean that others don't. PS, I'm not even working as a profesional photographer right now. When I was I took more photorgaphs a year.
From This Page (FAT File System Technology and Patent License)
# 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.
# 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:
That is, they're licensing
- preformatted removeable solid-state media
- devices which use removeable solid-state media
So, unless you make solid-state media or consumer-electronics devices which use them, you're HOME FREE.Apparently, they're NOT (currently) requiring licenses for the (generic, in any/all cases, "we own this patented technology") USE of FAT (eg OS drivers).
IN fact, what it looks like, is Microsoft trying to make a few bux of the plethora of Digital Cameras out there.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
FAt is patented. This example shows how important the interoperability privilegue was that FFII got into the EU Parl proposal of the software patents directive. http://swpat.ffii.org
In a case where someone really does have the rights, who cares? I mean, it is there property, and just because they want to collect on it, is there right. Now if it was SCO, then I could see some room for complaint. But if the disk makers decide to move to some other format, that is fine. But in my mind, I don't see the big issue.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
You take over 80 pictures a day?
Do you work in professional photography? Are you a close friend of somebody who does? No? Then are you qualified to make ASSertions about what a professional photographer would consider a "reasonable" rate of still photography?
On another matter (because I strive not to merely regurgitate articles for karma in my messages) it is unlikely that Microsoft would sue anyone for patent infringement relating to FAT. Patent suits normally run $3m to $6m, and by stating in advance that a license is worth no more than $250k Microsoft is ensuring it would never collect more than that in damages. Moreover, Microsoft has a history of not suing for patent infringement. Although at any given time it is engaged in a dozen or more patent suits it is always on the receiving end. Lots of little companies have their eyes set on the Microsoft pot o' gold... Patent litigation is not at all profitable for Microsoft.
So in conclusion, the worth of the license is mainly in the canonical source code.
With great power comes great fan noise.
A company has one year (365 days) from the time they first sell an invention to get their FAT axes into the patent office and make an application for a patent. If they blow it by even one day, their bright idea is prior art and can never be patented.
What is in those four patents that wasn't in WIN 95? Here is the link to the USPTO patent number search page: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
Plug in those patent numbers M$ has on their web page and look at the dates. Are they less than 365 days after WIN 95 was released? Or are they more?
Even if M$ ever had a patent on FAT (which they never did), every patent prior to mid 1987 has expired. They have a lifespan limited by law, and old patents before 1995 had 17 years lifespan from the day the USPTO received the patent application. Most patents are not granted until 18 months of examination, so the date of issue is not the date the clock starts ticking. Therefore FAT would be public domain by now even if it ever had been patented (which it wasn't because M$ didn't invent it).
M$ is charging $250,000.00 for something in the public domain. That is legal, but there is nothing illegal about you, or me, selling the same thing if we can find damn fool suckers willing to pay us a quarter-megabuck for it.