Germany Rejects Microsoft FAT Patent

Askmum writes in with news that a German patent court has ruled Microsoft's patent on FAT invalid in that country, finding that it is "not based on inventive activity." Just one of 6,000-odd patents Microsoft has amassed since a 1991 memo from Bill Gates turned around the company's attitude to patents.

Comments

1980

[mastershake_phd]

Are they ruling on the oldest patents first? Its going to take a long time to reject all 6,000.

Re:1980

[jimstapleton]

Probably not, they are unlikely to look at patents that haven't expired.

Sadly most of MS's patents are post 95 by the article (they had around 100 in 95, 1000 in 99 and 6000 now If I remember correctly?)

Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[stratjakt]

I don't fault MSFT for patenting everything they can. Apple does it, Google does it, everyone does it. Eolas does it.

The system is broken. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Anonymous Coward]

The system is broken. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

We hate MS for many reasons. Just because we hate the patent system too, doesn't mean we cant enjoy a little chuckle when MS takes a much needed slap.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[stratjakt]

Yes, you hate MSFT for all the business practices you love from Apple or Google.

I know slashdot is a bunch of young'uns who personify corporations as either friend or foe.

I'm just pointing out that corporations are things, not beings, and they are a part of a system, and behave as they are supposed to within the system.

It's the system that was set up to allow robber barons to swindle stockholders, stifle innovation with patents, and clog our legal system with crap.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[mstahl]

While it may be best to think of corporations as things and not beings (I don't think it's healthy to think of them as best buddies or arch nemeses either), there really isn't much personification going on. They actually are (at least in the US) legally identical to individuals. That's in the sense that they can commit crimes and get sued or pay taxes.

It's probably a good thing that corporations can't get married.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[dreamchaser]

No, MS is executing it's legal obligations to maximize profit. It *is* the system that your ire should be directed at in this case. I notice you didn't make mention of Apple, etc. They *all* do it, and currently they have to.

Fix the patent system, and save your ire towards MS for things like illegally leveraging their monopoly power.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[SpaghettiCoder]

I agree. But I wouldn't want any revision of copyright laws to have any kind of global scope whatsoever. The problem is mostly the dodgy legal system in the USA, so the its partly contained for the time being.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Scott7477]

I agree with you. The article in ArsTechnica pointed out that at the time of the memo, Microsoft's position in the market was radically different than it is today. MS was a relatively small company compared to the big boys in the enterprise world like IBM and Sun and Novell. The way software was distributed was totally different as well. Given that the Internet was primarily an academic and military system at the time, companies were still sending you boxes of floppies. I recall from graduate school at that time seeing a business plan that contemplating distributing software through vending machines! It seems absurd now, but at the time it wasn't that far out of the ball park. In any case, based on reading the excerpt from the memo, Gates was trying to figure out how best to make money from the business of writing software. Today, the open source community is in the same boat. We want non-restrictive licenses (like MIT's), but also want to put food on the table.

I don't excuse MS's anti-competitive business practices, and a lot of their frankly dumb decisions over the years. But I can see where Gates has something of a point. To me, since software costs practically nothing to copy, the primary way to make a profit at software is in support. Most general-use software is rather simple to produce these days (see how many different text editors there are). So I don't think most types of software should be patentable.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[kcbrown]

I'm just pointing out that corporations are things, not beings, and they are a part of a system, and behave as they are supposed to within the system.

Not really.

Corporations are supposed to act in the best interests of the society in which they function first and foremost. If that were not the case, then a corporate charter and business license wouldn't be required, now would it?

The problem is that most people have lost sight of that fact. In exchange for limited liability and effective immortality, corporations are supposed to act with restraint. And in a sane, balanced society, such restraint would be enforced by the revocation of corporate charters in the case of misconduct, just like it was done in the (relatively) distant past.

People like you have been brainwashed to believe that it's okay for corporations to act in evil ways (if intentionally harming others for personal gain isn't evil, then I don't know what is) because "they're responsible to their shareholders" or some such bullshit.

But it's not okay. It never has been. Such behaviour is very harmful, and many ills of the world exist because of it. You might say that it's the responsibility of the government to hold corporations accountable for their actions and you would be right about that. But that in no way excuses the behaviour of corporations. That someone might not have been punished for murder doesn't make the act any less wrong.

People like you need to wake up, and fast, because we're almost out of time. The U.S. is pretty much unrecoverable now but there's still time for the rest of the world. But if corporations aren't held to a much higher standard than we hold them to now, it won't be long before they rule the rest of the world the way they rule the U.S.

And trust me, that would be a bad thing for just about everyone. The experience with the British East India Company is one of the things that led to the founding of the United States, after all.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[hxnwix]

Did you know that Microsoft is a key supporter of software patents worldwide? They're not just abusing the system - they helped create it.

So yes. I do blame them.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[mpe]

The problem is that most people have lost sight of that fact. In exchange for limited liability and effective immortality, corporations are supposed to act with restraint.

The term "limited liability" started off with one specific meaning. That was that shareholders' financial liability was limited to the amount of their investment. i.e. if the enterprise failed the worst that could happen is that they would have some worthless pieces of paper, creditors could not persue the "owners" of the business. Nothing to do with the idea of a business not being liable for the consequences of the actions of its executives.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[mpe]

They actually are (at least in the US) legally identical to individuals. That's in the sense that they can commit crimes and get sued or pay taxes.

Except that corporations don't tend to have their freedoms constrained at the point they are charged with a crime. Not many real people can be "business as usual" whilst awaiting a trial, let alone only only have their lawyers attend the trial. Even if found guilty there is no corporate equivalent of a prison sentence. When it comes to criminal law corporations and individuals are treated (very) differently. Even if the same statute theoretically applies to both situations.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[k1e0x]

You blame corporations and cite government as the solution to the problem but in reality it is government's involvement in business that creates a need to incorporate in the first place. We don't need more government control of business, we need less. What we want is to create an environment where "real people" control their own business and not fictional unethical money making monstrosities.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[RyanL2112]

Even if found guilty there is no corporate equivalent of a prison sentence. uhhh... I'm pretty sure a huge ass fine that puts the company into bankruptcy and/or out of business could be equated to a loss in freedoms.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[MojoRilla]

Fix the patent system, and save your ire towards MS for things like illegally leveraging their monopoly power.

But illegally leveraging their monopoly power is exactly what Microsoft is trying to do with their FAT patents. The FAT file system isn't useful to anyone besides someone trying to interoperate with Microsoft Windows. Microsoft's targets in their licencing efforts have been to go after removable media vendors and consumer electronics companies. The only value the FAT patents have for these companies is to interoperate with Microsoft Windows, otherwise they would use some other royalty free alternative.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Bozdune]

Yes, this is the classic Libertarian argument. The robber barons of the 19th and early 20th century wouldn't have amassed their monopolies had it not been for government regulations that allowed them to do so, blah blah blah.

Unfortunately for the Libertarians, laissez-faire capitalism is unstable. One company will emerge as the leader; and if it behaves rationally it will ruthlessly eliminate its opponents by out-competing them and out-spending them. Government is often an enabler in this process, but even if it wasn't there at all, the end result would still be the same -- monopoly.

Should AT&T have been broken up? No? Then are you interested in paying $30 for a long-distance call? Don't worry, it may still happen if the FCC continues to rule in favor of putting AT&T back together again, and in favor of locking everyone else out of the "last mile" wires.

The answer is not "less" government regulation, but "better" government regulation. Unfortunately, since government is corruptible, it tends to enable monopolists like Microsoft to persist until the abuses become so apparent that even a suitcase full of cash can't keep the politicians in office. Then, finally, they'll act -- but not before.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[k1e0x]

Well I disagree with you, and I'll just simply say that I'll take less or no government control over more better and new and improved control any day.

If end result is always monopoly why is something as massive as K-Mart almost history now? Something came along that was better and the monopoly disappeared overnight. Same thing would happen to AT&T.. if they start charging $30 per minute, people will move en-mass to something else. Freedom ensures choice.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Locklin]

I'm getting sick of the "your only being mean because its Microsoft, if it was Apple or Google, you would forgive" argument.

You ever stop to think that there is a reason /. types generally are harder on MS? maybe its because we've all spent years working in an industry where innovation and freedom has been supressed by a criminal company.

If you didn't like Apple or Google, you could easily go the rest of the year without touching one of their products. But I guarentee you can't do that with MS.

By the way, the rest of this comment is attached as a MS word doc.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Keeper]

My problem with that attitude (money should be made from support, not sale) is that it encourages the creation crappy software that is difficult to use. Computers should empower people -- people shouldn't need to pay a "support fee" to be able to effectively use a computer or the software running on it.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[sumdumass]

You confusing people and corperations with money and no money.

The difference is who has access tot he funding needed to defend themselves and how the justice system is revolved around treating people fair. What you end up with is a huge bale set for you and me but largely small to keep corporate offenders in jail. You also end up with having a herder time affording good lawyers were it is more readily available to corporations.

And don't think money means you win. Look at the execs form Tyco, Worldcom and Enron. Most say they didn't even do what was actually illegal and they just paid because it was their jobs to make sure the illegal activity didn't happen.

Again, they don't really have the advantages because of the legal system, they use the legal system to their advantage because they have the advantages (money, contacts, good lawyers, good record keeping and so on). We don't have a lot of that. What normal black guy accused of murdering a white boy and a white girl who he had a relationship with the girl at one time and held another person at gun point while leading the police on a chase across town, would have 3 defense attorneys and get off? The one who had money, connections, privilege, Status and so on. (O J in case you still didn't get it.) It is the same thing.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Ciggy]

Maybe, but whilst awaiting tral, a person is encarcerated in jail - with their freedoms of movement, action, normal everyday business, etc curtailed, unless bail is paid; whilst corporatons are awaiting trial are they incarcerated, unable to do normal everyday business, unless they post bail - do they even post bail?

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Kadin2048]

Markets may well breed monopolies, in some sectors anyway, but they're not all that stable when unprotected by legislation. The real problems start when a monopoly develops, and then that monopoly starts dumping money into the political process, distorting it, and producing laws that help entrench itself further.

Enough monopolies have fallen over the years to more flexible, innovative, nimble competitors, that it's clear that just being big won't save you. In fact, being big is more of an impediment than anything else -- think of Kodak, once a solid blue-chip stock, now a shadow of its former self because it miscalculated digital photography so badly. Or IBM's brush with death in the late 80s and early 90s. I could go on.

What's dangerous, though, is when big companies abuse the democratic process in some way, in order to buy protections for themselves. Realizing that they're not as innovative as the little guys, they try to protect their outdated business models by creating barriers to entry. This is what's really destructive, because it stops the normal cycle of turnover in the market, where companies too stodgy to move with the times fall to newer ones.

I'd argue that you can see this right now in the airline industry: the big U.S. airlines have pet legislators who make life difficult for upstarts (in some cases being pretty bald-faced about it, too), and continue to bail them out of trouble when they get too close to failure. (Meaning that they never get broken up and their assets aren't available for use by new entrants.) The net effect is bad for consumers.

That an industry might become dominated by a single or handful of firms isn't a problem in and of itself, because it's entirely possible that they're offering customers the best deals; the real problem is when firms start using means outside the market proper (like the government) to quash competition and protect themselves.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[sumdumass]

I don't think it was ever intended to shield executives from anything. The company in itself is really at the will and direction of the executives.

I think the problem lies in the belief that if you own the company you can tell it what to do. This is only the case if your one of the executives. And if that is the case, it does nothing to shield you from your part in whatever crime you and your company were involved in. Unfortunately, Many investors and owners take a hands off approach to a lot of their businesses and when something does happen, some people take this separation as some kind of proof that you were shielded from whatever.

This, I think is the disconnect people have. I'm trying to think of a craft analogy but I don't think I can put it into a story. I guess the best way to look at it is if someones retirement account invests in my company and my employee has an accident that results in someone getting killed, Should they person who owns stock of my company be held accountable for this if it causes the company to go bankrupt? The stock holders are part owners and you can have shares in an LLC. What if that retirement account is your? Should you be held liable for something you had no control or influence over? I'm not sure these things are thought thru completly.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[k1e0x]

This mentality burns me up. Government is not the solution to every problem. Yes, corporations are wrong for bribing government.. but they couldn't do it AT ALL if government had no power to control business in the first place.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[sumdumass]

When companies get large enough to be considered a monopoly because of antura conditions and they played fair and by the books the entire time line along that path, a monopoly isn't likely to happen.

It is when rules and laws are over looked. Competition is locked out and when government help that the monopoly can happen. At best they become content with an oligopoly. But there will always be competition and competition will tend to favor the large but smaller company who can adjust to market pressures faster. Many large monopoly like cooperations lose their monopoly status because the market move along without them. Unless they do something to halt the market and stop the competition, it will pass them on. Then they restructure, Get rid of what doesn't work, and they are now a small company again playing catchup.

It is usually restrictions to capitalisms that stops it from working. Sometimes these restrictions are needed though. It might be acceptable to have a few monopolies.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Bozdune]

There are too many counterexamples to your premise that monopolies will break up naturally on their own. The ADL scandal, for example, shows that large companies, when left alone by regulators, conspire among themselves to ensure market dominance, mutual survival, and high prices.

IBM's troubles started when they were slapped upside the head by the government's ultimately unsuccessful antitrust lawsuit. You may be too young to remember the bad old days when IBM refused to share specifications on their equipment, refused to interoperate with foreign peripherals, sued everyone who tried, and so on. They were Really Bad Guys. I remember; I lived through it. Now because of SCO and Linux they are suddenly Good Guys; but be careful, because a tiger can't change his stripes.

However, none of the above impacts your point about government cooperating with industry; certainly that's bad, certainly it contributes to lack of market flexibility, and certainly it needs to stop (although it won't). But government does have a responsibility to step in when anticompetitive behavior becomes extreme, as happened with AT&T. I remember my mom "saving up" for long distance calls -- literally. You really had to think hard before dialing "1". You couldn't buy a phone, except through AT&T, and you had to rent it month by month (by the time you had rented it for years, you had bought it 20 times over). And they had to come out and "install" your phone, and God forbid if they found an "illegal" extension phone (they just shut off your service, period). And so on. It was outrageous. The bastards were swimming in ill-gotten gains, and they deserved to be smashed into paste, as they were.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Mattsson]

uhhh... I'm pretty sure a huge ass fine that puts the company into bankruptcy and/or out of business could be equated to a loss in freedoms.

A huge ass fine that puts a company into bankruptcy == A huge ass fine that puts a person in personal bankruptcy.
What is needed it a system that halts the company from doing business for a set period of time, preferably while it's board of directors are in prison, if the company is found guilty of crimes that would have put a individual person in prison.
The corporation is responsible for the deaths of 200 people? Ok, sentence it for 200-accounts of man-slaughter.
That would probably quite promptly stop most corporations from breaking the law in any greater extent.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Todd Boyle]

I couldn't agree with you more, BOzdune. There is no choice available for "less government" or no government. That simply leaves power in the hands of whoever grabs it. Thugs and savants.

There are so many false dichotomies; one being that the role of government is to manage markets to prevent monopoly. This ratifies the notion that competition (among the most aggressive) is good. In ratifying competition some good things result. But many bad things also result; duplication for example and game theoretic behavior. Look closely and you see *everybody* competing to get money, not to serve customers. etc.

Everybody admits markets cannot address externalities, the effects on all stakeholders. The commons, the culture, the longterm future, for example are horribly disserved by market theology.

Cut to the solution: progressive income taxation that takes off and gets really extreme at really extreme incomes. Like, $1 million per year you are in the 80% bracket. This not only recovers to the commons but disincents hyperaggressive behavior. I am not worried about recession, our problem today is the opposite, a frantic hyperactivity, energy and CO2 crisis, etc. -todd- retired CPA

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Mr2001]

If end result is always monopoly why is something as massive as K-Mart almost history now? Something came along that was better and the monopoly disappeared overnight. Yes, an even larger chain came along whose name also ends in "Mart". It's more of a monopoly than K-Mart ever was, exerting more control over suppliers, squeezing more out of its employees, and forcing more competitors out of business. Don't pretend it's an improvement.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[TekPolitik]

It's probably a good thing that corporations can't get married.

I don't know about that. If they were married then at least they'd commit to only screwing their one partner. Right now they try to screw everybody they possibly can.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Raenex]

I don't like over-regulation either, but some regulation is needed for stuff like the environment. There are also markets where the barrier to entry is so high that the free market doesn't function. The completely hands off libertarian point of view is a bit simplistic.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[bigbird]

since software costs practically nothing to copy, the primary way to make a profit at software is in support.

We write FTP client libraries for people who need to embed this kind of functionality in their software.

Our libraries are easy to use, and a very small percentage of users need support. We simply couldn't survive if we didn't sell our software - in most cases technical support isn't needed by our customers. And we want to keep it that way - we don't want an incentive to write stuff that requires people to pay for support. Why shouldn't we make a profit simply by selling our software?

It may cost nothing to copy our software, but it cost a large amount to write it, and it is costing a lot to continue to fix bugs and add new features. And of course new products must get written somehow - no-one is going to pay for support for a product not yet written.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[k1e0x]

It is an improvement, as it gets more stuff to people faster and cheeper than ever before. Nothing wrong with Wal-Mart they just do the box store thing better, someday they too will be gone.. maybe Amazon will put them out. ..and Kodak another massive monopoly was replaced by.. an even larger monopoly? no.. cheep digital cameras that were created without government intervention.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[k1e0x]

Well its more of an Anarcho-capitalist idea but.. Why again do we need environmental regulation? If private people owned the land then they could sue when someone polluted their land, this makes regulation unnecessary. Actually its government regulating *its* land. (as it must claim to reserve rights over it in order to control it.) On top of all of that.. government is actually exempt from a lot of environmental laws.

Nuclear power plant owners were told from the feds that they would take the waste and dispose of it for them. In fact, they were told that they did not own the waste at all and it was illegal to dispose of it by any other means. They must turn the waste over to the government. This is still true today, yet the feds have not *actually* taken the possession of ANY of the waste. Its stored on site in most plants. The nuclear utilities have been paying the feds for storage to the tune of $8 billion dollars since 1980 even though not a single scrap of waste has been stored by the government. You see what a kick ass job the government does in the environmental protection role.

As for the money required to enter.. say the.. airline business.. it is very very high, but as others have proved its not out of reach.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Mr2001]

It is an improvement, as it gets more stuff to people faster and cheeper than ever before. Uh huh. If we can get ramen noodles, romance novels, and censored CDs for 10 cents less than the competition, it must be an improvement, regardless of what goes on behind the scenes? That's almost touching in its naivete.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Raenex]

Why again do we need environmental regulation? If private people owned the land then they could sue when someone polluted their land, this makes regulation unnecessary. Consider pollution from cars. Who are you going to sue for polluting your air? Who will stand up for wildlife? Also consider that by the time you get around to suing somebody, a lot of damage can be done. Wouldn't it be better to prevent this damage in the first place? Regulation has proven itself very practical. Look at how bad the environment was and was getting before regulation came into place. Look at places that don't have regulation.

I have a libertarian bent (I would like more personal freedoms and less government), but I don't think the extreme libertarian view works. An even more practical problem is that a more libertarian view will never come into power when the extreme view is the message. The Libertarians would actually make some headway if they moved more towards the center (speak out against the religious right, and stand for lower taxes).

You'll probably find this video interesting: Libertarian author David Brin gives a pragmatic, left-libertarian view of political strategy..

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[k1e0x]

Well. we could pass a law against it based solely on the fact that you don't "like" Wal-Mart.. I totally see your logic, lets make Wal-Mart illegal.

They don't actually need to do something wrong, or break any laws, they just need to be a successful corporation, with lots of large ugly stores, full of cheep products, and staffed by low income workers. (who do better there than some other jobs.) That's reason enough right?

We should force all stores to be local stores with high prices and limited goods.. this preserves the image of America. We should not try to do things better.

We can also force the lumber industry to start using axes again because if they have better, faster, methods then they will use them and become too successful. Think of all the jobs this will provide, just on making enough lumber for a single house. (and never mind the cost..)

Handy capping business rules, its good for everyone.

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[k1e0x]

Well, if you can prove that cars are a problem to your air, you can sue right now. The problem is proof.. that's actually a huge problem in the global warming circle. (personally I don't think anything will change till the average Joe can see an impact on their own lives anyhow but.. 'nother topic) Instead of all the idiotic things they do (IE: ramming a whaling ship) Greenpeace could spend its money to buy land then protect it as private property. Maybe they could develop clean energy (wind / solar) on it as well and sell it. The free market does have answers to problems people would not expect it to.

I don't know how bad things were before "regulations" I grew up in Montana and from what I can tell the mining waste that was there 100 years ago is STILL there.. Government has not made the land owners clean it nor have they cleaned it themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Pit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Smelter_Stac k - still has no trees in 200 miles of it.. (some time back they did put a golf course on the tons upon tons of ash and waste.. to hide it.)

I believe those who would use force on other men, to be the root evil of all recorded time and I believe that governments impose only force on others, as they have no other tool at their command.. I know where the Libertarians stand on this.. and if I had to choose between small government and no government I would take either just as well. Though I do not believe in the concept of government, as the founding fathers said it may be a necessary evil.. I don't know really but we have a LONG way to go to get either limited or no government in this country.

Move towards the center.. I'm down. Ron Paul in 08. :)

Re:Ya gotta fight fire with fire

[Mr2001]

Well. we could pass a law against it based solely on the fact that you don't "like" Wal-Mart.. I totally see your logic, lets make Wal-Mart illegal. Settle down, buddy. You seem to have me confused with someone else, because I never said anything about outlawing Wal-Mart.

They don't actually need to do something wrong, or break any laws, they just need to be a successful corporation, with lots of large ugly stores, full of cheep products, and staffed by low income workers. Wal-Mart's treatment of their employees, among other things, has been well documented as unethical and occasionally illegal. I hope you don't seriously think they've never done anything wrong.

Sorry but,

[Jason Hood]

this patent is only valid in the US and Samoa. Germany has no right to allow any Fat patents.

Re:Sorry but,

[Anonymous Coward]

now what's this? a dig at an "yo filesystem so FAT, it got rejected by germany"? weak. just weak.

Re:Sorry but,

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"now what's this? a dig at an "yo filesystem so FAT, it got rejected by germany"? weak. just weak."

Yo mama's so fat we had to format her with NTFS.

Re:Sorry but,

[DHalcyon]

http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2007/02/whos_ fat_german.html

Have too!

Re:Sorry but,

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Yo mama's so fat, SHE killed REISER.

Re:Sorry but,

[ScrewMaster]

Personally, I'm attracted to her. Definitely a Mother I'd Like to Format.

Real land of chocolate

[Rastignac]

Switzerland is the real land of chocolate, not Germany.

Re:Real land of chocolate

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Switzerland either. It's Belgium.

Re:Real land of chocolate

[apathy maybe]

Actually ...

The cocoa bean comes from South America (though most of it is now grown in West Africa). So while Switzerland may make a lot of chocolate it can't really claim to be the "Land of Chocolate".

Re:Real land of chocolate

[Carewolf]

Swiss chocolate is usually not real chocolate but milk chocolate. No one making this weak fake chocolate deserves the title of "land of chocolate"

Re:Real land of chocolate

[Gr8Apes]

While Belgium makes lots of chocolate, the best chocolate I've had by far is from Holland, which is also the land of cheese. Belgium is the land of beer. France, champagne and perhaps some reds and food made out of things you'd scrape off your shoe, Italy also has red wine, and Germany white whine and sausages.

There - if I left anything out - someone's sure to come along and point that out.

Re:Real land of chocolate

[Hognoxious]

Swiss chocolate is bloody awful[1], like most things Swiss. Belgian is best (it's one of two things they do well). German halbbitter (semi dark) is more or less edible. English is usually really milky, and American tastes like sweetened cheese.

[1] The black Toblerones are quite nice, if you can still get them.

Re:Real land of chocolate

[bill_mcgonigle]

Swiss chocolate is usually not real chocolate but milk chocolate. No one making this weak fake chocolate deserves the title of "land of chocolate"

Be careful, especially if you're still under 90% or the chocolate police will be knocking on your door. Actually, I find the best stuff is French, not Swiss.

Hmm..

[SevenHands]

Doesn't McDonalds already own this patent in Germany?

Re:Prior Art

[lukas84]

No.

Greetings from Switzerland.

Whoa!!!

[Bullfish]

You have to invent something to patent it! Say it ain't so! An awful lot of companies are going to go into panic over this! Why, it could threaten the entire patent holding industry!!

Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[javilon]

I was under the impression that software patents were _not_ allowed on the whole of Europe.

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[stratjakt]

You could argue that FAT is mechanism to allocate physical space on a storage device, and thus not "software" at all.

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[Scarblac]

Not true. Every country has its own rules. Besides those, there's also a European patent court, which isn't actually part of the EU, just a cooperation of European countries. That court officially doesn't allow software patents but does in practice; Germany's patent law is different, I have no idea.

The "EU patent directive" and the fight over software patents that's covered now and then on /. is about a EU proposal to do away with all this and replace it by a single EU system, and about whether software patents should be part of that.

This is "Slashdot knowledge", I have no actual knowledge of law, so...

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[bentcd]

I was under the impression that software patents were _not_ allowed on the whole of Europe.
That is almost correct. In Europe, software _as such_ cannot be patented. And "as such" turn out to be two very important words in this context. Patent lawyers have been very creative in getting software patented as something that is not quite software "as such". The most popular approach seems to be to patent it as software "that runs on a computer", which may or may not be different from software "as such".

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[teh kurisu]

The fact that they have been rejected on a European level doesn't mean that individual countries can't implement them, it just means that if you patent a piece of software in one EU country there's no guarantee that it will be respected in another.

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[Splab]

Don't know about the rest of EU, but here in Denmark software patents are invalid.

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[Plunky]

That is almost correct. In Europe, software _as such_ cannot be patented. And "as such" turn out to be two very important words in this context. Patent lawyers have been very creative in getting software patented as something that is not quite software "as such". The most popular approach seems to be to patent it as software "that runs on a computer", which may or may not be different from software "as such".

IANAL but I have written and released patent infringing software, and I always wondered if I would say that it is in fact software "as such", then obviously if they claim their patent does not cover software "as such", obviously their patent does not conflict with my released software..

..but actually, I just don't care about their patent.

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[jonbryce]

Where the invention is solely a computer program, or a method of carrying on business, a patent may not be granted under EU law. However, the fact that an invention may involve the use of a computer program does not in itself prevent a patent from being granted if there is some non-software related inventive step.

Re:Is Germany allowed to patent software?

[Jesus_666]

The "EU patent directive" and the fight over software patents that's covered now and then on /. is about a EU proposal to do away with all this and replace it by a single EU system, and about whether software patents should be part of that.

Actually, it's an attempt of the European Patent Organisation (EPO) to legitimize software patents.

The European Commission (EC) drafted a proposal for a common directive that allowed patents. The European Parliament (EP) discussed the proposal and (due to the efforts of the anti-software patent lobby) rejected it, ordering the EC to rewrite the draft. One of the parts criticized was the legitimization of software patents.

What the EC came up with was a draft that went even farther than the first one, completely ignoring the EP's demands. At the second examination the EP summarily rejected it (IIRC with about 95% of the votes against the draft), ending the entire process. If the EC wants to make a patent directive again they'll have to draft a new one and start the process over.

There were more schenanigans (like the EC trying to add software patents to an agriculture bill that wasn't subject to EP scrutiny), but this is the gist of it.

One way to look

[CSHARP123]

From the second article link - Emphasis mine

If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then they have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can.

Now that large company is MS and is trying to patent the obvious.

Re:One way to look

[pimpimpim]

Yes, I think that is what he wanted to say there anyway. Do it before someone else does it. Put in another way, they say that they also know that their patent requests are obvious.

Re:One way to look

[sconeu]

No it IsNot!!!
</SARCASM>

Sarcasm tags added for the sarcasm-impaired, in compliance with the ADA.

No big loss

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

We've got other things to hate them for.

An ideal one-liner solution to the patent law

[jimstapleton]

Patents cannot prevent, limit or contrain the production and distribution of products made using patented technologies and methods provided that said product is distributed without financial or material recompensation either directly or for supporting good and services.

1) The market is improved by keeping patents from harming free distribution of goods and services that in general better the lives of others. [i.e. patents cannot become tools of anti-generocity and anti-benevolacne]
2) The patent holders cannot be abused by other people who want to make money off of their work without providing compensation [if such is desired].

FAT Patent?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I thought it was only slightly chubby...

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[Noryungi]

Whoa!

Not so fast! Off the top of my head, there is a lot of stuff that still uses FAT: SD-Card, USB sticks, most of the little thingie you stick into a cell phone, a digital camera, and use in embedded systems. Basically everything that can emulate (and does emulate) a floppy disk And what about real floppy disks themselves?

FAT has got a lot of problems, but it's convenient, simple to implement, and relatively stable. And most of the systems in use today can read and write to it (Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows, MacOS, you name it), so it is also convenient for quickly transferring data from those small thingamajigs into you main PeeCee.

So yeah, FAT is here to stay. It does not do a lot, but what it does, it does well. And that's why rejecting the FAT patent in Germany is Good News(tm).

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[zotz]

Lots of people care...

camera memory, flash drives, ... ???

all the best,

drew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=834CMndtLqA

Re:Prior Art

[Tony Hoyle]

Germany is the land of beer.

And beer festivals. Yum...

Re:Prior Art

[tedric]

Well, Germany may be famous for beer, but the history of beer dates back to ancient Egypt. We aren't even world champions in drinking beer any more. The Czech Republic has a higher per capita consumption than Germany.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[fjf33]

Not really, FAT is still critical for small devices like memory sticks, flash, etc where the fact that FAT is lightweight make a significant difference. The moment you encumber it with patents, then devices like cameras, mp3 players, etc would have to potentially pay microsoft royalties.

This is great... fta

[micromuncher]

FTA "[Prevents company from] lay claim to basic computing procedures that in the final analysis are trivial."

And, FAT is a trivial format, (as are Apple DOS 16, ProDOS, CODOS, and other ancient formats) but FAT has the caveat it is commonly used today in devices such as digital cameras (So pfffft on the person who said its not used.)

I completely agree with the german PO that a patent has to be on something innovative and inventive. Every time I see a patent for a double-linked list or radix sort I get the shivers.

I have to believe ...

[LaughingCoder]

... that this is a don't care for MS. FAT is ubiquitous - thumbdrives use it, digital cameras use it, mp3 players use it. In fact it's hard to find a piece of solid state media that doesn't come pre-formatted with FAT. Because of that, I guess I was always under the impression FAT was in the public domain; it really surprised me to see there was a patent at all. Does anyone out there know if MS collects royalties or license fees from this patent?

Re:I have to believe ...

[herve_masson]

really surprised me to see there was a patent at all

You must be new here. The last link is the reason why Germany likely felt necessary to cleanup that particular junk patent. I don't think they are in a process to cleanup the whole insane system anytime soon :) I wonder why they have to though, knowing that EU don't recognize such patent (yet).

Re:I have to believe ...

[LaughingCoder]

Interesting. I am not new here, but I didn't happen to see those other discussions - thanks for the pointers.

Re:I have to believe ...

[Herve5]

read the end of the article. MS proposes licences @ $250000 for very precisely these products...
Out of all solid-state media makers if just a couple have already paid, it's a million-dollar-worth patent...

Ahem...

[Svartalf]

Considering that they don't use NTFS in SD, MMC, CF, xD, etc. cards (Or ext2/ext3, etc...)
and they use FAT32 for those for interoperability with everything, MS claiming they have
a patent on that file format and everybody owes them royalties...

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[J0nne]

FAT is still used today in some small devices (MP3 players and such) and is useful if you want to share files between different operating systems (Windows, OS X and Linux). Read/Write support for FAT is included by default in all 3 operating systems. AFAIK, there's no other filesystem that is commonly supported like that.

FUSE/ntfs-3g is changing this, though, so now at least Linux and Windows can read/write to a common file system now, and FUSE works on Mac OS X too (but it's not easy to install yet. Maybe Apple will include a fork in a future update and claim it's an innovation, but that's a whole other story).

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[Bert64]

Can't speak for NTFS, but my mp3 player uses HFS+ as a filesystem, which both linux and osx can access perfectly well.

On the other hand, a new filesystem designed specifically for embedded use would probably be a worthwhile development, and perhaps these patents will cause someone to do just that. Not that microsoft aren't too arrogant to include support for anyone else's filesystem.

FAT patent

[rongage]

You guys know how Microsoft folk like to toss about that Linux violates Microsoft's patents...

You guys know how "we" like to shout out "put up or shut up"...

Opportunity is right in front of our noses - right now!

Whether we think the patent is valid or not is irrelevent - it's been held as valid by the USPTO. The existance of a patent is considered prima facie evidence of validity in a court of law. It takes LOTS of money and time to get a patent declared invalid in court. LOTS of money - a million dollars would not be unusual for legal costs in a patent fight. Unless YOU have the money to put up for the fight, the battle is already lost here.

Microsoft has a valid patent on FAT (or more specifically FAT32). Linux implements FAT and FAT32. Unless someone has a signed document from Microsoft stating that Linux has a royalty-free license to use the patented technology, we are violating the patent - period.

Time to get coding - people talk about "coding around" a patent issue should one be found. Well, one has been laid directly at our feet. Time to get coding...

Re:FAT patent

[JonJ]

How do you propose one codes around a patent?

Re:FAT patent

[rongage]

I am not proposing that we can code around a patent. I am merely repeating what others have stated in the past.

The irony is not lost on you obviously: you can't code around a patent like this. Either you license the patent or you drop the feature.

Since I've been moderated as flamebait on this, it's obviously a touchy subject - sorry about that. The truth sucks sometimes...

Re:FAT patent

[Todd Knarr]

Well, what Microsoft holds the a (purportedly valid) patent on isn't FAT or FAT32. It's on the particular algorithm for mapping long filenames into an 8.3 format and (I think) storing the long filename where it can be found. What the German court found was that a) the idea of doing such a mapping isn't original enough to be potentially patentable, and b) even if it was, the Rock Ridge extensions to the ISO-9660 filesystem (specifically the parts that allow mapping of Unix long filenames to the 8.3 upper-case-only native 9660 names) are similar enough to be prior art and invalidate MS's patent (as it would be simply an obvious extension of that prior art).

FAT is old

[gr8_phk]

FAT itself was documented in 1983 (or earlier?) in Byte magazine. It can not be and is not patented today as I understand it. My understanding is that MS patented the long filename feature that came along later. Lets not confuse basic FAT functionality with long file names. It's also more interesting to call it a long filename patent, as it sounds even dumber than a FAT patent.

Re:FAT is old

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody mod this up. The same thing comes up every time this patent is mentioned. ( every time!) It's not a patent on FAT, it's a patent on patching together many 8.3 filenames to make a long name. RTFP!

Re:FAT is old

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's also more interesting to call it a long filename patent, as it sounds even dumber than a FAT patent.

Didn't Apple do something like this to network ProDOS machines onto AppleShare file servers?

(ouch, several of those neurons haven't fired for 15 years)

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[tomstdenis]

MSFT supports *reading* FAT partitions, just not *making* them. Hmm, I wonder why. It can't be to cut down on code bloat. Vista is larger than XP.

Oh, I know, OSS operating systems can read it. *dawns conspiracy hat*, maybe MSFT wants to make it even harder to work with OSS?

Tom

Surprised they didn't come up with an alternative

[91degrees]

Isn't this the patent on the hack that allows Windows 95 file systems to be used in MSDOS? It's a hack for back compatibility for a system that's completely obselete. And I'm not sure where its used. All cameras I've used use MSDOS 8.3 filenames. Mayeba few portable devices use FAT on flash, and maybe flash relies on this method or something ut I'd have thought this would have been thought of before. Why didn't the standards organisations come up with a better, free filesystem for USB filesystem devices or for flash or something? FAT is cheap and nasty and, as I mentioned earlier, long filename support is a hack.

Real Prior Art

[Saffaya]

Asking my elders here :

Isn't FAT a rip-off from CP/M ?
Wouldn't it be considered prior art if presented in court ?

Re:Real Prior Art

[LWATCDR]

No. The concepts behind FAT way predate CP/M. My guess is IBM probably developed most it. They did invent the floppy disk and they had to have some kind of format. CP/M used the 8" Floppy standard that IBM developed so I would guess it was IBM.

Microsoft's Full Patent List [Browsable]

[RembrandtX]

Just in case anyone was interested, here is a full list of Microsoft's Issued Patents [Current as of a week or two ago].
Its hosted at a free patent searching tool, so don't blame me if their servers melt. :)

Microsoft's Patents

Microsoft = Cartman?

[fatty ding dong]

Its not FAT, its Big Boned.

Germans indeed first

[PermanentMarker]

at first there where smale germans soon the became fat germans.
It's more a matter of evolution and ingnorence that tey'r still fat.
I can asure this was before MS claims on FAT
We might partition those in two groups MS -Fat and german Fat
Altouhg MS recognized later more races and therefore counted til Fat16, widely used in america too.
But what if one of these rases would mix up with a german?
Gues what Fat32 was born in 1998.

Well it couldnt endup with 32 so then someone had to break this logic and said wtf..! no he didnt he said ntfs!
But we sofar failed to understand, what is mentioned by it, in regards to those poor Fat Germans.
Probaply wtf would have made them angry so they agreed on the term ntfs

Well that's historical correct. :)

Format

[RasendeRutje]

So now I can legally format my harddrive?

Re:Format

[maxwell demon]

Only in Germany.
If you don't live in Germany, you might consider a trip to Germany taking your computer with you in order to legally format your hard drive.
However I'm not sure if you can legally import the newly created FAT file system on your hard disk into your home country. But you can evade that danger by leaving it in Germany.

Vending machines

[tuxic]

I recall from graduate school at that time seeing a business plan that contemplating distributing software through vending machines! It seems absurd now, but at the time it wasn't that far out of the ball park

Actually, these days there are a couple of vending machines for iPod purchases available at airports http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/security/?p=41/. Therefore today I wouldn't think of software sold via a vending machine to be absurd, but several years ago? Yes.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[Cal Paterson]

Can't speak for NTFS, but my mp3 player uses HFS+ as a filesystem, which both linux and osx can access perfectly well.

If you're referring to some kind of Ipod, bear in mind that previously, Apple would format the Ipod differently depending on the host OS that it was first used on. Nowadays though, they've dropped that, and use FAT32 on all Ipods.

Re:Surprised they didn't come up with an alternati

[PermanentMarker]

hmm you forget the historics.
Fat was allready there in the Dos age, it was simply used again in windows 95
Fat32 (long filename support) arived in win98, a kind of hack the FAT concept.

Fat16 the plain old Fat has some good and simpel concepts too.
Mainly it didnt require much overhead, as systems with long filenames have.
So because of its simplicity it has been used for a (short) while in some memory device sticks too.
But these day they are often formated to NTFS, i use NTFS on my usb sticks.
Not sure what is running my cam but it's memcard in my PDA seam to understand long file names, might be fat32.
But still there are simpel devices who can only read something as simple as a fat partition table, or cannt write long filenames. Like the devices you seam to have.

Fat is mostly simple.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[LubosD]

Just use ext2. It's simple, yet powerful enough.

FAT history

[SpaceLifeForm]

Don't forget FAT12.

Software patents

[Scott7477]

According to Wikipedia,a patent filer gets 20 years before the patent expires, typically. Clearly there are many companies/organizations that are currently running software that has been in production use for more than 20 years. Couldn't a company using software that has lost patent protection take that software, make a few changes and call it their own new product and then cancel any licensing/maintenance contracts with the vendor?

Re:Software patents

[Pyrroc]

That would violate copyright.

Re:Prior Art

[will.perdikakis]

Ireland has more drunks per capita than people.

Not just Gates; probably everyone

[dpbsmith]

It wasn't just Gates.

I was working at a Fortune 500 minicomputer company in 1991, and the corporate law office sent around a memo that was posted on every department's bulletin board. It read something like this:

"Many progammers believe that software cannot be patented. The message of this memo is simple. They are wrong:" and then, in 144-point type that could be read from across the room:

"IT CAN BE." ...and then continued with what to do if you thought you had a patentable idea.

Similar things were probably happening in any large company where software was being developed and the lawyers were awake.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[Yvan256]

[...] Apple would format the Ipod differently depending on the host OS that it was first used on. Nowadays though, they've dropped that, and use FAT32 on all Ipods.

Really? Then why are both my 10GB iPod and 4GB iPod nano formatted with HFS+?

Why do I hate MSFT?

[Kadin2048]

It's entirely possible that if Google or Apple was in the position Microsoft is in, I'd hate them just as much as I do MS. In fact, it's highly probable. But they're not, so it's a bit of an academic point. I wasn't a big fan of IBM back in the early 90s, when they were the dominant player, and every once in a while I find it odd when I read some pro-OSS, pro-IBM article, because there's a part of me that still thinks that ought to be a contradiction.

But to be honest, what really gets to me about Microsoft isn't their overly aggressive business practices, it's the fact that they're boring. They have more money, more resources, than God, and yet they seem to constantly fail to innovate. That's what's really painful. Maybe being on the top isn't conducive to innovation, and if Apple or anybody else were up there, they'd be just as stagnant and dependent on buying and copying ideas from elsewhere, but I think part of it is just a function of Microsoft's culture and its leadership. I mean, you could say virtually the same thing about Bill Gates personally -- the man has enough money to practically reshape the world, but he seems mostly content to sit in his gigantic house and run his pet charity, which on the whole isn't particularly creative or innovative. It's just like every other charity ... just bigger. There's no vision there. Compare him to John D. Rockefeller, or any number of early-20th-century philanthropic industrialists, and the guy's just a total zero.

So that's what really gets me about Microsoft. It's not that they're evil; I could forgive them for that -- I respect evil. But they're mediocre and evil, and there's no excuse for that.

Re:Prior Art

[Hognoxious]

Even the Irish can't drink as much as sixteen trillion drunks...

From what I've seen, they'd put up a pretty fine effort.

Re:Surprised they didn't come up with an alternati

[Ant P.]

Why didn't the standards organisations come up with a better, free filesystem for USB filesystem devices or for flash or something?

They did.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[Bloke down the pub]

You're absolutely correct; it's a kind of "lowest common denominator" - a bit like CSV is for spreadsheets. It might not rock, but pretty much anything can read or write it. In the past I've set up dual boot machines with a small FAT partition so I could move data back and forth between Linux & Windows, though with improved USB support in Linux and the falling cost of plug-in storage it's more or less moot these days. Grandparent is an assclown.

Faulty German reasoning.

[517714]

A patent does not apply to doing the thing, it applies to how to do the thing. After the fact recognition of how obvious the invention was is inappropriate - if I am smart enough nothing you can invent is not obvious in hindsight. Patents are about being first to create a product or process, recognizing its value, and capitalizing on that value by seeking patent protection. Eli Whitney's cotton gin did not do anything new, it did it efficiently, he made little money from his invention because a person can copy a patented item for his own use.

I believe that, while the patent is valid in principle, since MS failed to actively defend the patent initially they cannot start enforcing it now. This is because every time MS let a product enter the market that was "MS compatible" they leveraged the availabililty of those products to increase MS OS appeal. Now that they dominate the market, they cannot be allowed to change the rules to their further benefit.

Re:Faulty German reasoning.

[Raenex]

Patents are about being first to create a product or process, recognizing its value, and capitalizing on that value by seeking patent protection. The basis for patent law is that patents provide necessary protection to inventors to advance society further than would be the case without patents. History shows that software patents are not needed. Even Bill Gates agreed with this position in 1991, but was forced into the patent game for defense. Sadly they extended that to offense.

I believe that, while the patent is valid in principle, since MS failed to actively defend the patent initially they cannot start enforcing it now. "cannot" ethically or legally? And if legally, in which country, Germany or the US?

Prior art.

[Kadin2048]

They tried to, but the schnitzel producers' guild claimed prior art.

Re:Prior art.

[Sique]

It seems that the Döner Kebab guild has the rights at the fat patent... at least Döner Kebab is the most served fast food in Germany (15 mio servings per day, compared with 5 mio burgers and about 1.2 mio bratwurst/curry wurst).

Re:Prior Art

[Pyrroc]

It dates back to even before ancient Egypt to the mountains of western Iran

had to look

[zogger]

Never been there so had never eaten one, here is the wiki entry for anyone else who wants to see what a doner kebab is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6ner_kebab#Germ any

Re:Surprised they didn't come up with an alternati

[Bungie]

Fat was allready there in the Dos age, it was simply used again in windows 95 Fat32 (long filename support) arived in win98, a kind of hack the FAT concept.

Actually the origional filesystem was FAT12, which is mostly used for floppies. FAT16 was used in MS-DOS as the filesystem for hard disks. VFAT is the long file name support that was put into Windows 95, it actually is a hack that stores the filename as a table entry with an invalid combination of attributes, so older versions of DOS will skip over the entry when they read it. FAT32 was a new filesystem that came out with Windows 95 OSR2 which allowed it to be used on hard disks over 2GB.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[Cal Paterson]

To reiterate: This is because you originally formated them from OSX. This is no longer the default behavior of iTunes.

Wikipedia agrees.

Moo

[Chacham]

Microsoft though it was ahead with this IDEa, and had it served on a platter, yet it was a hard drive to get FAT off thin ISA. Specializing in radio advertising, our LLC, could have promoted this via AM/FM. You get the idea.

Re:Is FAT a rip-off of CP/M - No and here is why

[Douglas Goodall]

CP/M had a flat file system with no directories. There was also not a free list on disk as it was dynamically calculated every time you pressed control-c. They did have "user" numbers but these were filters only and not hierarchical. In fact the first version of Dos, called 86dos by seattle computer products didn't support subdirectories and this feature was added later by MS, probably at IBM's request.

Late in the 1980's Digital resarch folded their DosPLUS fat support into Concurrent DOS, and then we had md, cd, rd...

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[J0nne]

I actually meant to say "some small devices (most MP3 players and such)". I know the iPod is an exception (when formatted by a mac). Most mp3 players by other manufacturers use FAT, and the iPod when you formatted it for Windows.

As for Linux being able to read HFS+: I'm not so sure about that. Wikipedia claims there's 'some Linux' support, but I don't know if that means that only some distro's support it, or if it's supported in a limited fashion (like NTFS was until recently). Have you actually tried reading/writing a HFS+ filesystem with Linux?

Besides, FAT's simplicity, for all its limitations, makes it a good candidate if you make an embedded device. It's well documented, has a relatively low overhead compared to other filesystems, and you don't need stuff like file permissions and support for files over 2GB anyway on most embedded things.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[Bert64]

Yes, i have read and written to HFS+ partitions using linux.
The restriction is that it doesn't support journaled HFS+ for writing (as in, it works but is unsupported because it hasnt been tested enough to be sure it wont corrupt the journal). The support is right there in the stock kernel sources, as well as support for mac partition tables (as used on PPC macs) which will also be created when you format an ipod on a mac.
As for distro support, that I don't know, yellow dog obviously supports it as i'm sure would any PPC distro, and any distro when you've compiled the kernel yourself.

Re:"FAT" - who cares?

[J0nne]

aha, thanks for that answer. I've been wondering about that for a while now, and it seems like the answer wasn't easy to find online. When Feisty comes out, I'll try to see if it works on an iMac.

6,000 patents since 1991?

[Tim C]

Wow, that sure sounds like a lot. Oh, except that IBM has that beaten into a cocked hat.

I know that the general opinion here is that MS is evil, and (software) patents are evil, but IBM is still by far the largest patentee in this field, and some of us still remember when Big Blue was as evil and hated as MS is now.

Point being don't single MS out for criticism, as they're all doing it, even our "friends".

Mmm...Döner.

[Kadin2048]

Yeah, you're right ... the last time I was in Germany, it seemed like you couldn't go ten feet without tripping over a Döner stand/shop. Actually, I've always been surprised that it's not more popular here in the 'States. I mean, it's got some vegetables in it, you could pass it off as "healthy" (*snort*...but there's a sucker born every minute, right?).

Man, I could go for a Döner right now, actually. I'd probably just lose interest somewhere over the Atlantic, though.

MS didn't invent FAT

[mr_sparc]

The File Allocation Table was actually invented by Gary Kildall and Digital Research as part of CP/M. The original MS DOS was developed from a reverse engineered copy of CP/M called QDOS which was written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products. Paul Allen bought the rights to this, it then became MS DOS. CP/M had the 8.3 filename restriction that came from FAT.