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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 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.
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This isn't about making money, and it isn't about protecting a patent. This is simply an exercise for the benefit of the courts: Microsoft will be holding FAT (along with lots of other things) up as examples of how they're making their standards available to the competition.
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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.
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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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...
I agree with your statement that the canonical implementation has some value, though.
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We are only accessing FAT32 file systems, not using them.
I'll remember that one when the RIAA come around. "I'm only accessing thousands of MP3s, not using them, so I'm off totally scot-free!"
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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.
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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.
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