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TomTom Settles With Microsoft
Surrounded writes "It appears TomTom bowed to the pressure and settled with Microsoft over the recent patent infringement claims from the Redmond software giant. In the agreement, TomTom will pay Microsoft for coverage under the eight car navigation and file management systems patents in the Microsoft case. Also as part of the agreement, Microsoft receives coverage under the four patents included in the TomTom counter-suit. TomTom also has to remove functionality related to two file management system patents (the 'FAT LFN patents')."
Yeah. Without a court ruling one way or the other, we have no indication whether Microsoft's strategy Free/Open Source software using patents (see the Halloween Documents) will be upheld by the courts. That sword is still dangling over Linux and other F/OSS developers.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Um lol?
Anyway, there wasn't any details on the removed functionality, or any side effects. I don't want to download a minor update to my device and suddenly lose something.
I don't like the precedence this sets at all - removing functionality related to the file management systems. Everyone should be extremely bothered by the implications of that.
Remember kids, if you're going to build a Linux-based device and distribute it in the USA, remove the FAT driver and include an ext2fs IFS driver on your install CD.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well how are your usb sticks formatted? Also if you have dual boot windows/linux on your computer, FAT partitions are really easy to handle from both windows and linux. Truly FAT is not the best file system, but it is still widely used.
Do what Parallels do and ship MacFUSE with your install...
Note that they never sere alleging violation of FAT32 patents, merely long name support.
When you say "Nobody supports anything else" I presume you mean in small devices, cameras, phones, thumb drives, etc.
But use of other file systems on such devices would be no worse than distributing drivers (like was done for Win98) and using EXT2/3/4.
A high quality windows driver released free and clear for that pretty much flips the coin on Microsoft. There are several of these out there: ( http://www.fs-driver.org/ http://ext2fsd.sourceforge.net/ ) but its not clear that they are robust enough for device vendors to ship millions of units with.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I don't believe you. I can name more than that off the top of my head.
Mapdata Sciences
Navteq
Digital Globe
USGS
They may not all have complete sets of road data, but I'm sure there are more than two.
with UDF you can have only one partition on that device
What USB drive or SD card comes preformatted with more than one partition?
There is another way, but its not much better.
If USB devices were to show up as 'network adapters' with some kinda minimal IP stack, then it could be a network storage device and the vendor's software can talk to whatever the back end device's native file system is, by even as something as crazy as WebDAV.
The benefit is that you have totally abstracted the device from the host OS, and the benefit is platform neutrality.
FAT is more than common.
When the talk turns to pocketable media, it is all but universal - and close on to thirty years old.
The HP on your desktop has a 15 in 1 card reader.
2 cartridge slots for HP's USB media drives. 4-6 USB ports "out back" and maybe a Firewire port or two.
So much for getting the hardware manufactures to agree on anything. But what is your compelling argument to move away from FAT?
FAT is a file system for the temporary storage of a keychain drive, digital camera or camcorder.
It needs to be compatible with the PC and the Mac - 99% of your potential market.
But it doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated or robust.
Licensing is capped at $250K - and the patent will, in time, expire.
There are no show-stoppers.
Still want to use Mono?
Yes