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Linux Patch Clears the Air For Use of Microsoft's FAT Filesystem
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."
Is FAT used for anything other than USB drives?
You say that like that's a small thing.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
The reason that FAT is still around has more to do with compatibility than any kind of technical merit. Pretty much every version of Windows supports FAT, and most other operating systems can use it as well. I think most "smart" vendors have figured out that if they use FAT for their devices (music players, cameras, GPS units) then pretty much anyone will be able to use them. That's why it's important to have FAT support in Linux, no one is saying that you have to use it on your / partition though. :-)
FAT is hardly a submarine patent. MS has sued MANY manufacturers over their use of FAT in electronic devices and most companies end up reaching a licensing agreement and the lawsuit is dropped.
Thank you for correcting my ignorance on this matter.
Incidentally, the more I hear of things like this, the better I can understand why so many Europeans think it's absurd that the USA has software patents at all.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The bottom line is that Microsoft is using its monopoly position as an operating system vendor to force third parties to license trivial but patented VFAT technology that is only useful for interoperability.
If that isn't abuse of their monopoly, I don't know what is.
Hmm, I'm not so sure this is a good idea.....
How do simpler devices that write to FAT deal with it?
cameras, pdas, etc
All modern PDAs can typically deal with long filenames fully, so no problems there. They would read the long filenames properly from a FAT disk created with this Linux patch.
Digital cameras typically use short filenames exclusively (e.g. IMPC1234.JPG). They mostly only write files and don't read files other than those that they've created themselves. This patch doesn't affect filename reading, only filename writing, so cameras would work okay too.
MP3 players typically deal with long filenames as well, so no problems again, hopefully... as long as they obey the specs for reading FAT partitions.
So this patch should not interfere much with interoperability with modern accessory/embedded devices. Of course, the patch does remove some functionality... namely the ability to create nicely matched short filenames when you're also creating a long filename. But I do believe it's a fairly clever way to avoid this bullshit patent while maintaining interoperability.
It's important to understand that this patch DOES NOT permanently remove any functionality from the Linux kernel. It merely provides a kernel config option to disable full FAT operation. Depending on your jurisdiction/comfort level/Microsoft-hatred/etc. you can choose to enable/disable the patch.
My bicyles