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TomTom Can License FAT Without Violating the GPL
dp619 writes "Capped per-unit royalties make FAT licensing agreements permissible under the GPL, and SD Times has found that Microsoft's public license policy caps royalties at $250k. If the royalties are capped — as they seem to be — TomTom should be able to license FAT without violating the GPL. And if that is the case ... TomTom needs some serious explaining to do as to why they aren't licensing FAT. That said, Microsoft still needs to explain why it just cannot say that folks won't violate the GPL if they license FAT under its terms."
This story is nonsense.
First, to be sued you have to have someone willing to sue you. That would be the copyright holders of the GPL code that can't be distributed. They are:
Werner Almesberger
Gordon Chaffee
Wolfram Pienkoss
OGAWA Hirofumi
Those are the listed authors of the vfat code in the Linux kernel.
I don't see why those folks would want to sue TomTom. In general the kernel team isn't interested in suing to enforce the GPL, and the only person to bring such a suit, Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org, isn't involved with this code.
One of the possibilities in this case is that other companies than TomTom want to see the patents in question invalidated, and don't want to see TomTom bought by Microsoft, and will help TomTom with funds, etc. Whatever agreements go on about that will happen behind closed doors.
TomTom probably would not want to pay a capped royalty of a quarter million for something as bad as the FAT patents without at least exploring any less expensive paths to invalidate the patent. Like the Doctrine of Laches, for example. That code has been in the kernel longer than the usual Laches interval, which in general would hand MS and automatic loss.
Less expensive ways to win, in this case, may also mean "with someone else's money".
A capped royalty payment is in general NOT in compliance with the GPL version 2. What is "fixed" in GPL3 is the Novell loophole of licensing customers of the other company rather than the other company directly. Microsoft is not required to offer TomTom a license that uses the Novell loophole. Whatever they offer TomTom may still be out of compliance with GPL2. But that doesn't matter if the developers don't want to sue.
Jeremy is either being misquoted (likely) or he's a bit off-base this time.
Bruce Perens.
Just switch file systems. Seriously, why the hell are you using FAT anyway.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Most likely the "cap" only applies to TomTom, not other 'licensees' of the software. For example, if TomTom sold a program to another company that relies on FAT technology, and the other company develops a different product based on the same kernel, Microsoft (if they follow common practice) would require the second company to license the FAT technology, to ship a product based on it.
Unless their standard agreement would allow TomTom to sublicense the technology, and include an unlimited royalty-free license when they distribute the Linux source code that corresponds to the software they are shipping in binary form, then the "capped" license still violates the GPL.
The GPL doesn't say you can distribute software under the GPL with capped royalties.
The only way this works is if TomTom pays the full $250,000, and gets unlimited licensing for them and all recipients of the software from them.
TomTom cannot require people who receive source code under GPL terms to report when they redistribute, in order for TomTom to pay for another license. The reporting requirement would be in violation of the GPL.
See the GPL version 2 (which applies to the Linux kernel), these are some quotes from the License:
They are the victim of an attempted extortion racket over a couple of bogus patents. Why on earth should extortion victims have to explain why they didn't just pay up instead of taking the bastards to court?
The Microsoft v Tom-Tom suit covers a half-dozen or so patents, only two of them FAT-related. (Besides which, the FAT patent has been thrown out in Germany.) Most if not all of them are obvious or have prior art, like the FAT patents, and may well not hold up under Bilski. What does it gain Tom-Tom to license a (potential invalidatable) patent like FAT if they're still being sued over half a dozen others? If they have to go to court anyway, might as well try to get them all overturned - they can always offer to settle later.
-- Alastair
The memory cards / SD cards use fat
Or just maybe it's because people expect to be able to see some files when they plug their GPS receivers into their Windows machines. If Windows had an Ext2 driver bundled with it, I wouldn't ever format a USB drive as FAT either.
IIRC it isn't about FAT, but about using long names in FAT.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
Why wouldn't they want to sue? Lots of people would love to see the Microsoft patent get invalidated, of those lots of people are confident it will be. If that number out of the original population is greater than 25%, there's a 1 in four, or real, chance one of those guys wants to sue, on principle if not on principal. I'm sure they would likewise get financial help from others to fight just like TomTom would, just different sources.
Sue TomTom and let them decide to take their chances with copyright law or open source law, one being rather established and one rather less so. End result is the same, only TomTom does it involuntarily.
TomTom should be able to license FAT without violating the GPL. And if that is the case ... TomTom needs some serious explaining to do as to why they aren't licensing FAT. That said, Microsoft still needs to explain why it just cannot say that folks won't violate the GPL if they license FAT under its terms."
Ohh yes they will violate the GPL. I have lifted the comment below (in bold), from this informed user who I trust on these issues. He also drives home the motivation behind Microsoft's actions. Take a read.
Samba maintainer Jeremy Allison pointed out in a recent blog posting by writer Glyn Moody that companies who sign up to Microsoft's licensing cannot continue to distribute their code under GPLv2.
Section seven of GPLv2 - called the "Liberty or Death" clause - states that you cannot distribute code if outside restrictions have been imposed.
"What people are missing about this is the either/or choice that Microsoft is giving TomTom," Alison posted.
"It isn't a case of cross-license and everything is ok. If TomTom or any other company cross licenses patents then by section 7 of GPLv2 (for the Linux kernel). they lose the rights to redistribute the kernel at all."
In other words, Microsoft is eroding Linux and open source and slowing their development. A deal with Microsoft prevents GPL'd code from returning to the ecosystem whence it came, with any improvements or updates, as companies that do patent licensing deals with Microsoft must keep it in-house.
Maybe they won't, but I wonder if TomTom can really take the risk of being sued later for willful infringement?
Considering how long copyrights last nowadays, the kernel developers easily have 70+ years to discover the infringement and pursue them.
They might like to seek out the kernel developers of the code involved in the relevant modules and license their work under more permissive terms for use in TomTom's products...
TomTom (probably) can't pay Microsoft for a license to the FAT patents without violating the GPL. The people who wrote the code that is (probably) covered by Microsoft's patent would then have the right to sue TomTom (for violating the GPL).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Setting aside the idiocy in assuming that the patents are valid after being rejected twice by the USPTO before finally being revalidated and ...
GPL V2 Terms and Conditions
11. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Library at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Library by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Library.
Microsoft does have the presidence in their favor due to the final decision of the USPTO and forcing Lexar to pay them off for their lame patents, but only a fool would simply give in to extortion.
Say I format a floppy on a Windows machine using FAT and it has some long file names on it. Do I have to pay a royalty to Microsoft for for the privilege of owning the floppy or for the privilege of reading the floppy on my Linux machine sitting right next to it?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Okay but can microsoft sue the vendor of every linux laptop which supports vfat?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
That would make it incompatible with all versions of Windows. At which point you might as well use another filesystem.
FAT files need the stupid short names. It's a requirement. You can't physically have a FAT filesystem without short names. The patents are about the fugly hack that long filenames on FAT are (which makes them compatible with short filenames; it doesn't add that capability to them).
Question : Don't you have to show that you've been harmed in order to bring a lawsuit? I'm not a lawyer, but I always thought that in order to sue somebody, you had to be damaged by them.
Now, let's say Tom Tom or any other company ponies up to Microsoft and distributes some piece of hardware bundled with Linux, and that's obviously a violation of the GPL. Clearly Tom Tom broke the license and they are not entitled to distribute it.
The question is, is the GPL owner harmed?
Well, one could make the argument that the answer is no, as everyone who actually had a Tom Tom device could in fact obtain the GPL code for themselves, and could update the code in the device. In fact, a person owning a Tom Tom might perhaps just state that a replacement in deed, because, if the Tom Tom GPL code is the same as the code it would be replaced with, which it has to be, then a physical act of copying the code over to make it legal is silly.
What this could be then, would be really Microsoft trolling for the ultimate legal showdown, which is thus: Microsoft makes a bunch of noise but ultimately gives Tom Tom a vfat license, rendering Tom Tom in default of the GPL. Somebody sues Tom Tom, at which point, Microsoft's pocketbooks open up and they support Tom Tom in the lawsuit, arguing that, well, because any person who is distributed the GPL by Tom Tom, can get it from somewhere else, Tom Tom's infringement is actually academic.
Thus, the attack would be, you can't be damaged by someone redistributing your GPL code against the terms of the license, because the person they are distributing it to can get it directly from you, and the GPL is actually worthless.
This is my sig.
I say challenge them in court and put this nonsense down once and for all. There is tones of prior art. The vfat code was written before the patent was filed. They should just challenge Microsoft in court. I mean really. Whats wrong with challenging them. I'd say this is the safest bet at this point.
You're correct Bruce, I'm off base this time. I got contacted by the writer this morning who told me that the SFLC had told him that a fixed cap would work with GPLv2. So being in the middle of coding something (ie. not paying enough attention), and remembering the fixed price we paid to get access to the EU Workgroup Server docs, I just agreed that it sounded like this would be a work-around for v2, but not for v3 where section 11 is much stricter about patent licensing (explicitly the bits about extending the license downstream), and bingo - there goes the story with the quote. You know how these things go :-(. My fault, and I'll be more careful in future.
Looking closely at the license here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060207034921/http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp
the devil is in the details. Someone just mailed me a comprehensive analysis and agreeing to this license, even with a royalty cap, would violate GPLv2 in several ways.
There is a field of use restriction : "Pricing for other device types can be negotiated with Microsoft."
Modification restrictions: "devices are fully compliant with certain required portions of the Microsoft FAT file system specification"
and a per-manufacturer limit: "a cap on total royalties of $250,000 per manufacturer".
So yes, I got it wrong and this license is in no way GPLv2 compatible.
Sorry for the mistake. Blame me, not the journalist who was just trying to get his story.
Jeremy.
Way back when the whole thing about fat being patented hit slashdot there were a few articles. One in particular was about nearly every camera manufacturer ponying up the dollars after the patent was uphelp... they all paid $250k to use fat (so no, this isnt new - and this was all on slashdot by the way).
Also, people keep missing the point of the patent (i.e. whats being licensed) keep an eye on whats being licensed here, its important. This is not "oh your flash card has a fat filesystem on it, you have to pay for it". Its "your device can read and write fat"... NOT THE STORAGE CARD! its the DEVICE that can read and write FAT (specifically long-file names capable FAT). Do we get what the license is for now?
Now what filesystem exactly would they switch to? joe blogs goes and downloads the update, plugs his flash card into his windows box and (formats the flash card if required - as fat or ntfs). Then plugs that into the tomtom device. Tomtom device doesnt read fat(32) and so it doesnt work...
i.e. tom tom are essentially forced to license a patent based the fact they are forced to implement fat in their device.
I personally hope tomtom fight it. from the words of (whats is possibly) the worlds most moronic OP "TomTom needs some serious explaining to do as to why they aren't licensing FAT.". You dont think Tom-tom already knew about it? you dont think they ever read the (very very public) news about it happening to the camera makers?
But in reality, it should read more like "the patent office have some serious explaining to do in order to justify why FAT was ever allowed to be patented". Those patents should never have been allowed - there is nothing remotely inventive about fat with long file names.
IANAL nor do I pretend to know much of the topic, but I understand that the person who wrote and distributed the software tha uses MS's workaround for using long filenames on FAT would have to pay the license, not the end user.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
GPL developers suing TomTom over their copyrights would not get the chance to invalidate the patents. Their suit would be a copyright case. It's TomTom who can invalidate the patents if they decide to fight Microsoft that way. It's not even clear that they have to take the trouble, they could show that the vfat code has been in the kernel long enough for the Doctrine of Laches - which says you lose the right to assert your patent if you wait for the market to develop first - to apply.
Bruce Perens.
Actually the lawsuit is over multiple patents, some of which are the FAT patents, all of which are dubious...
United States Patent 6,175,789
Beckert , et al. January 16, 2001
Vehicle computer system with open platform architecture
United States Patent 7,054,745
Couckuyt , et al. May 30, 2006
Method and system for generating driving directions
United States Patent 6,704,032
Falcon , et al. March 9, 2004
Methods and arrangements for interacting with controllable objects within a graphical user interface environment using various input mechanisms
United States Patent 7,117,286
Falcon October 3, 2006
Portable computing device-integrated appliance
United States Patent 6,202,008
Beckert , et al. March 13, 2001
Vehicle computer system with wireless internet connectivity
United States Patent 5,579,517
Reynolds , et al. November 26, 1996
Common name space for long and short filenames
United States Patent 5,758,352
Reynolds , et al. May 26, 1998
Common name space for long and short filenames
United States Patent 6,256,642
Krueger , et al. July 3, 2001
Method and system for file system management using a flash-erasable, programmable, read-only memory
Microsoft still needs to explain why it just cannot say that folks won't violate the GPL if they license FAT under its terms.
Just what we need... Microsoft offering legal opinions about GPL enforcement.
Thanks for replying again, quickOnTheUptake. I'm just trying to gauge how possible it would be for TomTom to just use ext2/3 as it's main storage and have a FAT partition (unreadable for the device because it would lack the drivers) that auto-runs a ext driver install when connected to a Windows PC.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Thank you, Jeremy. I suspect you may be a bit out on a limb on the GPL compliance angle, too. As you can see above, there are only a few people who are direct copyright holders of the code that exercises the patent. The rest of the kernel isn't at issue. I think those four may be the only people with standing to sue. The question then is: does suing deter Microsoft, or only deter TomTom from embedding Linux in their device?
Obviously how TomTom conducts itself will be important. If their CEO has an on-stage hug with an MS executive and actively helps Microsoft circumvent the GPL, that would probably irk some developers. If they get bought by MS, they'd probably start embedding WinCE. If they just try to go on doing business as well as they can without allowing themselves to be a mouthpiece for a Microsoft FUD initiative, the key copyright holders might not have a reason to object. I would feel better about TomTom, though, if they hadn't had to be dragged into GPL compliance. But my experience is that companies usually commit GPL incompliance out of ignorance and bad process rather than intent.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Certainly MS could sue anyone who they claim violated their patent and didn't buy a license. It has nothing special to do with laptops or Linux.
The question is whether they would succeed.
Nobody got the sarcasm. The "informed user" is Rob Enderle, who is, according to his own web site, paid to take opinions by certain software vendors. Or he just psychotic. The point he is trying to make about holding back code doesn't make legal sense, because that's not in GPL compliance either.
Bruce Perens.
Worse than that, they would be playing right into Microsoft's hands, scaring device developers away from Linux towards WinCE.
How... odd. Enderle is always good for a chuckle. Like this paragraph:
Heh. Enderle. All concerned for FOSS. A big believer in the honesty of FOSS developers. That's rich.
Is someone connected high up with VLC, GIMP or even Mozilla that can start piggy-backing the ext2fs driver installer (with the users permission of course) on installation of such programs? Heck it would go a long way to fixing such problems.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Why would someone develop for WinCE? Not to troll, it just seems like a dead platform.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
AFAIK, the original idea of patents was to give an inventor (read: the actual people who come up with an idea) a TEMPORARY market monopoly so that they could benefit from their invention without all & sundry copying it.
So far, so good. However, note "temporary" - the concept there was that eventually the idea would contribute to the common good. That, however, happens rarely.
Combine that with a questionable approach (I'm putting this mildly) to approving patents with plenty of prior art of falling well outside the boundary of what can be patented and you have an innovation stifling mess that only lawyers derive any benefit of - and very rich companies that can afford those lawyers.
I'm all for paying of what is due. I'm against a system that can be abused to stop competitive innovation or take an invention without paying.
Insert
"Vehicle computer system with wireless internet connectivity" That's a radio. Microsoft patented the freakin radio. Anyone who has a radio newer then 1990 has a chip in it and it does some computing.
Wireless internet connectivity implies one or more transmitters and receivers. Your average car radio is an entirely passive device that has no internet connectivity. The real question is what actually defines a 'computer system' these days?
Great exhibit for why allowing the patenting of software was a bad idea. Even you experts are guessing and rethinking how these hypothetical lawsuits would play out. If such complexity was necessary, it'd be one thing, but it's not.
Working out the issues in court could cost enough to make $250K look petty. Society will bear these costs. Generous of people to already be offering to help out with donations, but I wish it wasn't necessary. Ideally, MS should have no case whatsoever, and shouldn't even be thinking of such things. But patent law has handed them an angle. Remove patenting of software, and then the issues of this particular case will be non-issues.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Well WinCE supports FAT. Although I think you could just as easily license FAT on a closed embedded OS like QNX.
You could also use FreeBSD where there is no license to get in the way of licensing FAT.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I see another problem with this and that is that it shoots a hole in the GPS licensing. What good is open source if you still have to pay royalties to patent trolls in order to use it?
What do patent trolls have to do with anything? Let's say you are young enough to still go to school, and there is a school bully who threatens to beat up anyone who uses a computer that doesn't run Windows. So what good is GPL licensing? (I assume you meant GPL and not GPS). What good is a license to MacOS X, when Apple can't protect you from getting beaten up?
This whole GPL angle on the TomTom case is nonsense. TomTom uses Linux under the GPL license. Linux is either infringing on Microsoft's patent, or it isn't. If it is, that is not TomTom's fault. So TomTom gets blackmailed. They either pay or they don't. Whether they pay or they don't doesn't affect whether Linux is infringing on Microsoft's patent or not. Payment doesn't mean that TomTom admits Microsoft's patents are valid, it means they want to avoid a court case. Even if TomTom admits Microsoft's patents are valid, that isn't binding on anyone.
As long as TomTom puts all the code on their website, and doesn't itself add restrictions to its use, I can't see how they would be violating the GPL. Sure, they can tell you about this bully boy who forced them to pay money, and the bully boy could go after you as well. But the patent infringement, if there is one, is there in all Linux versions.
I'm starting to wonder if this isn't in some way connected to Apple's counter-intuitive decision to block TomTom from selling their software for the iPhone.
TomTom announced fairly shortly after the 3G iPhone with built-in GPS appeared that they had a working port of their navigation software, but despite the obvious demand for the App, and the profits to be made from Apple's cut if it was on the App store, Apple have a very surprising clause in their development agreement that prohibits 'turn by turn navigation' apps.
If Apple are ready to bundle their own brand navigation software into iPhone OS 3.0 (rumoured to be announced next week), it might drive TomTom into the arms of Microsoft... however if TomTom are siding with Apple and the inevitable approved navigation software *is* that port of TomTom, then this whole kerfuffle might well be a warning shot over their bows by Microsoft.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
... on the basis of Anti trust?
IANAL, but it seems to me that by agressively patenting the most common file system on the planet and limiting the use of this file system, Microsoft is essentially using its monopoly on the Windows platform to gain an unfair advantage in the sat.nav market.
I'm surprised Tom Tom hasn't started an anti-trust counter suit.
And I don't for a second believe that the FAT filesystem patents would stand up if faced with a decent lawyer in a court. All the patents are describing relatively simple engineering solutions that anyone could come up with when faced with the problems Microsoft created for themselves.
I didn't realize Tomtom was a country... no wonder they need to write navigation software :)
Then if TomTom settles with MS and TomTom's EULA does not impose restrictions on the end user, this clause does not apply. Even if it did what would it say ... must use windows when plugging the device to a PC! would not stand in court I assume
There is something bizarre about this clause and it's interpretation, in that TomTom does not own the rights to the Linux's vfat code, so how can they impose restrictions on it. Can I then impose restrictions on say ext3, just for fun?
How is this different from :
Redhat restricting the number of cpus if you buy RHEL.
Tivo restricting how (in fact if) you can use their device
Wireless device drivers including intel that impose restrictions on frequency the device can operate (by using blobs)
Linux distributions that support vFAT are on the market for several years now, and they certainly contain binaries too. Compiling your own kernel is optional and done after installation of the pre-compiled version. Except maybe Gentoo...
So while I don't know the legal details of laches (what is a typical timeframe for it to apply?), in principle this looks like a case where it fits.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Yes, he could not patent the concept of a teleporter, though he could patent a particular implementation. An idea does NOT need to be implementable (at the time) to be patentable. (Except, in the case of the USPTO, for perpetual motion machines, for which they demand a working model to keep the whackos at bay).
In his seminal article about geosynchronous satellites, published in 1945, Arthur C Clarke described the need for a synchroniser for TV signals transmitted by satellite, even though neither the satellite nor the technology to build the synchroniser existed at the time.
When the technology to build digital synchronizers arrived in the early seventies, the first company to build one was unable to patent the idea because of Clarke's prior art. Which was lucky for the company which built the second one, for which I worked a little time later.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Keep reading below and someone actually knows what they are talking about :)
I don't think there's anything magic about source code that would disable the Doctrine of Laches. There is ample evidence that the source code has been compiled and used in a commercial context for more than a decade. Microsoft has not asserted its rights against the producers of namei_vfat.c despite the fact that it has been clearly visible to Microsoft for a long time. I think that's all you need to build a Laches case.
Bruce Perens.
6 years is the commonly accepted interval. But Laches cases have been won for as little as 1 year.
Bruce Perens.
And GPLv3 is proof of his point.
The GPL restricts developers and distributors, not end users. GPLv3 adds additional restrictions.
If a business was built around exploiting "loopholes" in the GPLv2 and then the project they were relying on as a whole moves to GPLv3, then the business may have lost access to further updates.
So, even the GPL is not exempt from creating tighter restrictions. Just because some people happen to like the restrictions doesn't mean they aren't beyond those originally applied.
Personally you're right. However, they patented every car with Bluetooth enabled.
My Tomtom GPS looks up the weather for me online using a bluetooth connection to my cell phone for its Internet access. That's what they're going after here.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Dead? How many devices out there sport Windows Mobile? Windows Mobile is just a tailored build of Windows CE.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Why would someone develop for WinCE? Not to troll, it just seems like a dead platform.
No GPL restrictions?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Right, that's what I'm saying. Developers, being copyright owners, would sue TomTom for copyright violation. Copyright law being well established (GPL being a rather new twist, however), TomTom would probably attempt to meet the demands of the copyright owners instead of risking the loss of the code, which means following the terms of the GPL. That would force TomTom into compliance, whichever way they choose to go, and the most obvious choice is to fight back against Microsoft. As you say, Laches would be a lot easier path than defending against the copyright owners.
Several assumptions going on here, but they are as valid as the assumption that the copyright owners wouldn't want to sue. Keep in mind I have little idea what I'm talking about, just questioning assumptions and offering alternatives. And I'd love for someone to just stand up, point at Microsoft, and say "STFU" within my lifetime.
In general I would agree, but MS has been wielding this fairly heavily lately, and I wouldn't be surprised for someone to decide it's time call their bluff. This seems to be the perfect setup.
deploy a file system driver ... and bundle it with flash player ... It does not have to even integrate with flash but use the distribution mechanism to beat them at their own game
Bingo. If the FAT-LFN FS (FAT filesystem with long filename support) patents can't be invalidated, and aren't going to expire anytime soon, then I believe this idea will be the only permanent solution for the problem.
Right now every company that distributes a "plug-ready" storage device that comes formatted with a FAT-LFN FS on it has to pay an expensive MS tax, or risk getting sued. If a company that pays the ransom *also* puts Linux on the device to read & write this format, then technically they could be sued by the authors of that code (assuming they wanted to), *if* those authors knew who these companies were. We already know, from MS itself, that they have made such deals, under NDA, with companies, which allows those companies to remain anonymous.
Introducing a new FS "standard" (for small devices) into the world of Windows, free of MS patents, and as ubiquitous as, say, the Adobe Flash Player is, would be a permanent way of ending the MS tax.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure Adobe, specifically, would interested in trying, as AFAIK, they are primarily a software company, and don't make the kind of hardware devices we are talking about. What would be necessary, I think, is a consortium of hardware makers getting together, adopting an existing filesystem, making a Windows driver for it that is robust, stable, and ready for the typical Windows end-users out there, and then distributing the hell out of it. If they do the heavy lifting, *then* maybe they can get companies like Adobe, ones who are already doing mass distribution of commonly used Windows drivers & utilities, to help spread the new "standard", and *anyone* who has a device that needs this, could just slap this thing on their hardware's driver CD, with a label saying, in effect, "you must run the install CD first before using the device". Now that MS is targeting Adobe's own home-base with Silverlight, Adobe is not likely to be all that friendly towards MS anymore, and *probably* wouldn't mind helping out, as well as other major players, especially if it didn't require a lot of work on their part (just including it with whatever they're distributing now).
Would they (the hardware makers) be interested? I don't know, apparently most of them believe its just easier to pay the MS tax. So it might take a little help from some in the FOSS community to kickstart the idea, by taking an existing open filesystem that's free of patents, and doing some (or a lot) of the software engineering to make such a fast, free, stable, easy-to-use filesystem driver (and an installer for it) possible. As some have mentioned earlier however, the available ext2 driver on Windows is apparently not very stable (and do we *know* if its patent free?), so there doesn't appear to be a ready option already available, and none of the hardware makers that are now under MS's thumb, show any desire to try and fight back.
It might be a nice idea, or not, but the cynic in me thinks the most likely result will be that companies just continue to pay the MS tax (and those who also distribute Linux will do so anonymously, and just keep their heads down), until those FAT-LFN FS patents expire. The only question is, for how long?
So, what if TomTom chose to rewrite namei_vfat.c, which isn't very long or complicated, and take those copyright holders out of the picture? They could GPL the result, but the only party with standing to sue them over the FAT patent might then be themselves.
Bruce Perens.
I thought that Microsoft has a ongoing patent-licensing agreement with Novell which distributes GPLv3 software. But the GPLv3 says that therefore a world-wide royalty-free patent-license is granted. However the Linux kernel is licensed under GPLv2. So does anybody know a software which
* is licensed under GPLv3
* distributed by Novell
* and contains FAT
I guess that could change the game quite a bit.
All this will do is steer more businesses away from GPL licensed code towards a BSD or similar licensed code. I never got why a business would choose GPL code over BSD licensed code. They can modify and distribute all they want and only release their code changes if they choose to.
The gist of the GPL is about distribution, modifications and source availability. I searched for Open Office the other day, and the first link was something like software-openoffice.com. Out of morbid curiosity, I clicked on it and they wanted me to pay like $30-60/year subscription to download OO. For all I know, this is a patented business method or software design or something. Now, OO is LGPL, not GPL, but I've heard here on /. that in Europe these kind of pay sites for GPL stuff are around and they are legal.
Oh, it's even funnier than that in Russia. There, you get government agencies, such as police - not even BSA-type guys! - raiding offices to check for "illegal software". This is because in Russia, software piracy is a criminal matter, not civil - i.e. the state itself can and will sue you, even if the copyright holder does not want it to happen (this is what happened in Ponosov case, where MS itself said they have no problems, but the government went ahead with the prosecution).
Now, aside from all the obvious problems with that, there's also the issue that the people doing those inspections understand very little about the business. They often have a simple script, which basically tells them to require the business owner to present either software boxes or some other printed document with a holographic "licensed blah-blah-blah" sticker. They do not know about FLOSS in general or Linux and OpenOffice in particular, so if you have a PC that can boot, and it doesn't have a licensed Windows sticker, you're in trouble. You may of course fight that in the courts and will probably win - the problem is that those inspectors have the right to confiscate the PCs they deem "unlicensed" on the spot, and hold them in custody until the court rules in your favor. Given that it may easily take several months to a year, it's a very major detriment for any business to stay out of most, if not all, of their computers for so long.
So an alternative solution was found: some software distributors sell fancy-looking papers as "licenses" for FLOSS software. For example, here you can buy such a license for OpenOffice for ~$20. What it is is just a printout of a Russian translation of the GPL on fancy paper with a holographic sticker, and a title page that says "License granted to company X", so that you can shove it in the face of any inspector that comes to check. They say it works. $20 isn't exactly a small amount, though...
And I still call the FAT patent a troll patent.
Almost every software patent is troll patents one way or another because they just causes trouble for software development.
As it is now one company can claim a software patent and claim thousands of man-hours for it while another can do the same development in an afternoon with the right guy.
And if you have a patent attack on Linux it's subsequently also attacking GPL.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Here's how TomTom can get off the GPL hook, no matter what terms they come to with Microsoft:
The engineering effort for this would be easy.