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Linux Patch Clears the Air For Use of Microsoft's FAT Filesystem

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the anything-you-can-do-i-can-do-better dept.

Ars Technica is reporting that a new kernel patch may provide a workaround to allow use of Microsoft's FAT file system on Linux without paying licensing fees. "Andrew Tridgell, one of the lead developers behind the Samba project, published a patch last week that will alter the behavior of the Linux FAT implementation so that it will not generate both short and long filenames. In situations where the total filename fits within the 11-character limit, the filesystem will generate only a short name. When the filename exceeds that length, it will only generate a long name and will populate the short name value with 11 invalid characters so that it is ignored by the operating system."

6 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. the 80's called by wardk · · Score: 3, Funny

    they want their obsolete file system back

  2. Re:Can someone explain to me why this is important by AVee · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't know about you, but I like my USB drives to be small things.

  3. Re:It's time to show MS the power of *nix by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let me guess.. you are in your teens/early 20's..

    You do realize that in the real world people play the prisoner's dilemma, right?

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  4. Be nice. by commodoresloat · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's not FAT; it's just big-boned.

  5. Re:Can someone explain to me why this is important by commodoresloat · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't know about you, but I like my USB drives to be small things.

    Then why would you want them to be FAT?

  6. Re:Who in their right mind would want to use Ext3? by lisaparratt · · Score: 2, Funny

    All it requires then is a single unified network file system that's 100% reliable, and doesn't bizarrely fail for more reasons than there are life forms on earth...