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."

Comments

its very common

[rebelcool]

for small devices and portable media like flash cards for its simplicity.

So simple in fact, many companies have rolled their own FAT-alikes that are backwards compatible with it and thus likely avoid licensing fees. M-Soft likely sees it as a opportunity to squeeze the last bits out of the old tech... such as "is your FAT system *really* compliant? Why not just buy ours and we guarantee it is!"

I don't see why this is worthy of a story...pretty common business practice out there.

Re:...Patent Issue

[LostCluster]

Not needed... you're confusing that with the requirement that an owner must defend a trademark or lose it. Non-enforcement doesn't invalidate a patent, only prior works can do that.

However, non-enforcing a patent and then allowing it to go into widespread use unchecked is a very slimeball thing to do. If somebody pointed out that FAT32 was owned by Microsoft, and there was no affordable licenses, the makers of FAT32-formatted devices would suddenly stop, turn around, and pick another, presumably less MS-compatible format.

If Microsoft chose to waive-off their patent into the public domain, they could do that. However, then they'd be allowing the open source world to have access to it too, and MS wouldn't want to do that.

By establishing a nominal fee, they prevent open source programs from formatting things to FAT32, but allow the making of FAT32-formatted devices to go on relatively unhindered...