Microsoft to Charge for FAT File System 1424
pario writes "According to Microsoft, the Redmond company is going to charge a license fee for any product that is formatted in FAT by the manufacturer. Any manufacturer of compact flash memory cards or digital cameras may end up paying Microsoft as much as $250,000 for the use of the file format. The FAT File System is covered by several US patents."
The future? (Score:5, Funny)
(Disclaimer: The above statement is the intellectual property of Uberm00 Corp. and may not be used without prior written permission.)
re: the future? (Score:4, Funny)
seriously though: this is an inducement for people to use other file systems. is NTFS similarly protected? if not, is this the objective of this move?
ed
Re: the future? (Score:5, Informative)
the format has not fully been determined, nor has it been fully released by MS.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
(I'm not disputing your assertions, btw.)
Now correct me if wrong, but isn't a requirement to get a patent that you disclose EVERYTHING necessary so that a person "skilled in the art" can recreate the patented work? If such a patent exists, then wouldn't (shouldn't?) it have everything necessary to make a Linux NTFS driver work?
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
So someone "skilled in the art" could create a filesystem using the techniques in NTFS described by the MS patents, but this wouldn't necessarily be compatible with NTFS.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe in theory, but it's not like the patent guys have time to verify complete documentation by sitting down and re-implementing each and every application using only the applicant's docs. Considering the way the patent system has been bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated in recent years (e.g., Amazon's one-click, Netflix's business model), less-than-complete disclosure starts to look like the least of the patent office's worries.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Interesting)
But, NTFS uses several inventions, and some code to tie them all together. Whereas you should be able to determine all the patentable bits, it may be REALLY tough to figure out all the details.
I read the Sorenson video codec patents once, to see how they encode video. It was a nearly useless endeavor.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not everything inside NTFS is patented. A patent for a "means to store a filename in an inode" doesn't tell you a whole lot about anything.
Once again, look to abuse by the patent system. Patents and Copyright were supposed to superceed trade secrets. Either Or, was supposed to be a choice you had to make. Now you can use both, thus the entire point of the patent system has been corrupted.
Patents were supposed to cover "inventions", not mear discoveries or things that could be produced by anyone skilled in the art as a matter of need. Thus something like NTFS may be subject to patent, and thus made available to the public at the end of the term. But, again, the system has been corrupted such that one NEVER patents the invention itself, but as many individual acts of routine as possible. Thus, your "invention" remains opaque and your "patents" can cover all sorts of routine.
FAT is a "filesystem" that any not-so-good programmer might throw together if so asked to store files. It is hardly an "invention" under the intent of the patent system.
Imagine the Light bulb. Prior, nothing even remotely like it was in existed. That's an invention. Putting a metal base on it, using blue glass, or shaping it like a christmas tree bulb is not (well, was never supposed to be). Those little improvements are somthing anyone skilled in the art of glassblowing would take for granted.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, if killing the FAT file system isn't the objective, it will be the result. It's probably aimed at preventing Linux interoperability with Windows machines. I don't know how that will play out, in court or otherwise, but if MS has patents on FAT, then presumably they may want, or be able, to prevent people from distributing free code to access FAT files systems.
Certainly, any company using FAT for its products will switch to a different file system. SCO may want to sue MS for infringing on its patented "Cock Pistol, Shoot Foot" algorithm.
Overall, I kind of think it might be a good thing that MS is doing this. It provides yet another reason for tech companies to consider embedded Linux for their devices. And the more prevalent Linux becomes in that sector, a) the sooner Linux driver support will improve, and b) the more home users will consider Linux.
Linux & FreeDOS Compatibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Responsding to myself, but this just occurred to me: I wonder how this will affect the FreeDOS project. My first guess would be that they'll have to rewrite the project to use ext2 or some other file system.
Software patents have been commonly regarded as the "nukes" of the software world. I'm beginning to think that MS has decided it has nothing to lose by going nuclear on the free software world.
Re:Linux & FreeDOS Compatibility (Score:5, Interesting)
FreeDOS does not distribute in the FAT filesystem, interestingly: the official distribution is a CD-ROM ISO image only. They also don't distribute product or media preformatted with FAT. I don't even think Microsoft is going after programs that can create a FAT filesystem, so FreeDOS can format a hard disk and you're good to go.
However, I wouldn't mind if they did make it ext2. If you're booting with FreeDOS, it doesn't really matter what the filesystem is. Just allow reading of FAT partitions and floppies, and you can copy over all the old DOS software you wanted to run. Might be a few bugs here and there, but I guess when Microsoft wants to play rough, you just get out of the way.
Re:How long do patents last? (Score:5, Interesting)
But the FAT design was such a half-assed pile of crap that it became obsolete very quickly, and Microsoft patched it up several times. Presumably, they patented the fixes.
It is difficult to understand how even the notoriously permissive US Patent Office could grant a patent to something as far behind the state of the art as the FAT file system. Its only original features were steps backwards from the state of the art. Not only the Unix filesystem, but several proprietary minicomputer filesystems which have since died, were significantly better than the FAT filesystem.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Another point is: please define "small" media. When FAT was invented and optimized for small media, the definition of "small" was 360K floppy disks. FAT was unsuitable for a Big Hard Di_k of 2 GB or more. So is a 256 MB flash card really "small" media? Isn't, say ext3 suitable for such a "small" media? It seems to me like that that long ago people talked up how you could install Linux on older systems with tiny hard disks that are smaller than some flash memory cards.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
More important is that every electronic gizmo taking flash memory cards (digital cameras and MP3 players) can read/write it without installing drivers!
Because although installing a filesystem driver may be painful on Win98, it's one thousand times worse on solid-state electronics.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Once, but not any more. Originally cameras used FAT for Windows compatibility (Even though it wasn't really needed back then... at that time, consumers needed new drivers to recognize flashcards, so they could've installed a new filesystem at the same time). But today, cameras need to be compatible not only with Windows desktops, but also other digital cameras, media on store shelves, Kodak photo-kiosks.
MS isn't going after Sony for the cameras they made yesterday, they're gunning for license fees for cameras they are *going* to build.
That's painfully obvious, and changes nothing.
The cameras don't talk to each other, so it won't matter if the camera I buy next year doesn't speak FAT.
Oh really? You've never moved a memcard from one camera to another? You don't enjoy the convenience of tearing an SD Card out of its package and immediately jamming it into your camera, without reformating it first? (Which would erase any data already on the card)
It is precisely because all current digital cameras use FAT that future cameras will need to- otherwise, those future cameras will be at a competitive disadvantage because sticking a memory-card into them doesn't "just work".
From a domineering-industrialist standpoint, Microsoft has played this very well: they allowed FAT support to seem free long enough for all digital cameras to use it, even though initially filesystem didn't matter. Now that the manufacturers are addicted, they can start to bring up the price. A textbook submarine patent.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but how hard is it to implement a windows DLL which allows reading ext2 (for example)? At http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs. htm [swin.edu.au] there is such a program. Have whatever program/DLL included with the digital device install program. End of problem and paying M$ royalties. After all, ext2 is fully documented and (to the best of my knowledge) patent free.
And for those who will claim, "But that is an extra step!": Yes, but the drivers only need be installed once, and the ability to save about $250,000 per license term (a year maybe???) will be hard to resist for manufacturers. I've seen manufacturers skimp on things which cost a lot less.
Re:But isn't this a circular argument? (Score:5, Insightful)
>lot of pressure on [y]our support systems" trying to install a digital
>camera or flash media under Windows, do you think that Microsoft will
>have to drop their desktop distribution?
This fear of "negative experience" will cause the camera vendor to bend over and pay the license fee, because they (rightly) fear their customers are not capable of installing extra drivers.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Informative)
Uhhh, neither is FAT.
FAT has fixed size directory indexes. If you have half a dozen files in a directory, you are discarding most of the directory index. If you make the directory index small then you can't store lots of files in a single directory. It's a no-win tradeoff. A space efficient filesystem would use dynamically resizable directory indexes.
The FAT itself is a bitmap (one FAT entry for every single block) with each entry referencing the next entry (like a linked list). You find the first block of the file from the directory index. Imagine how inefficient this is when the file has contiguous blocks. Why not use extents? That would greatly reduce the space requirements for the FAT.
The original FAT16 limited you to only 65536 possible block numbers. If you have a 512MB USB key then that means every block is 8kB. So on average you waste 4kB per file; 1000s of files means many megabytes of wasted space. Another glaring example of FAT inefficiency. A space efficient filesystem would offer variable sized blocks.
For FAT to perform efficiently you must load the entire FAT into memory (otherwise traversing the list of blocks is a nightmare of head seeks). This makes it vulnerable to files being corrupted or lost if there is sudden power failure or the disk is removed. The "saving grace" is that the FAT is protected because it never had the chance to be flushed out of RAM, so the filesystem is at least consistent. Whether this behaviour is good or bad seems to be a matter of debate; my opinion is that the data is more important than the damn filesystem and FAT fails in that regard.
The only thing FAT has going for it is incredible simplicity which made sense on the woefully underpowered and underfeatured IBM PC of 1980. But in terms of efficiency it is exactly the same as many other bitmap-based filesystems. FAT was also heavily optimised for 320kB (that's not a typo) floppy disks because the FAT would fit into a single 512 byte sector. It makes no sense in a modern world with gigabyte removable media.
These USB keys should be using something clever like CRAMFS but with journalling and "balanced writes" (each block gets roughly equal write time) to preserve the life of the key.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Informative)
FAT is very simplistic, there's essentially two structures. One is the File Allocation Table, which keeps track of which blocks are used in what way (e.g. part of a file, last block in a file, bad block, free block). Then there are the directories, which are just arrays of inodes, which also contain the file names. The inode points to the first block, the FAT tells which blocks follow. There are no permissions, hard links, symlinks, file types (other than regular vs. directory). The FAT and root directory are stored at the beginning of the volume.
Now to NTFS. (Disclaimer: NTFS is complex and I don't claim to fully understand it.) NTFS Has a Master File Table, which has inodes for every file on the volume (which are seperate from filenames, like on Unix file systems). NTFS supports hard links, symlins, attributes, permissions (based on Access Control Lists), and sparse files. File names are looked up in b-trees rather than sequential lists. Instead of listing every single block occupied by a file, it uses start, length pairs (AKA extents). NTFS uses journaling and supports transparent compression and encryption. Several structures are stored in the middle of the volume to minimize seek times.
Compare this to traditional Unix file systems (UFS, FFS, ext2). There's an inode table at the beginning of the volume. Inodes encode ownership, permissions (based on owner and group), a few attributes (e.g. setid bits), often part of the block list or the content of the file. Directories are sequential lists of (inode number, file name) pairs. Hard links and symlinks are supported, as are special files like devices and FIFOs. No extended attributes, no B-trees, no ACLs, no compression, no encryption, no journaling. (although many/all of these have been added at one point or another to ext2 and FFS, sometimes preserving compatibility). Important structures are replicated in various parts of the volume to enhance speed and reliability.
As you can see, NTFS is a very advanced filesystem, supporting many features that Linux filesystems are now beginning to have. FAT is hardly any more advanced than the very minimum required to store and retrieve data. Unix filesystems are somewhere in between, supporting features important to Unix systems such as permissions and device nodes, while at the same time keeping it simple. Personally, I think a the traditional Unix filesystems are much closer to FAT than NTFS is.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Informative)
You are confusing feature bloat with being advanced. NTFS is a feature-bloated file system, but none of the features they crammed into that file system are anything new, and many of them will never make it into mainstream UNIX file systems because they are just not a good engineering tradeoff.
Compare this to traditional Unix file systems (UFS, FFS, ext2).
Your comments imply an incorrect timeline. By the time NTFS came out, there were already several UNIX file systems with a comparable feature set. Furthermore, a number of key NTFS features existed in name only for several years, until Microsoft finally got around to implementing them.
MS White Paper on FAT Contains Non-Sue Clause (Score:5, Interesting)
Just discovered this link in a comment over at Groklaw. Section 1.e. of this document would seem to indicate that MS has already granted the right to use FAT for hardware and operating systems:
It doesn't seem like they could actually sue anyone for using FAT under this covenant, which is copyrighted 2000.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has allowed the fat file system to propogate for free until becoming a standard, and now is slamming charges on it's use for everything that should grandfather this. Microsoft has every right to do it (again if you believe software patents are legitimate and therefore give right) but they shouldn't impose this on existing applications of the technology. Rather on whatever comes out of the gate from this day forth.
Besides that, the fat filesystem is only unique in the sense that it never occured to anyone to write a filesystem so blatantly weak and crippled.
I believe the real reason microsoft is doing this is because fat is the only filesystem which can easily be used to exchange data between windows and other operating systems.
Re: the future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Patents WERE put in place (Score:5, Insightful)
In essence, patents have created a club, and while you can still get a patent and make money, you probably can't disrupt an existing technology, because you need to license existing technology to make your patent work, and the most likely license term is to cross-license your technology back to the would-be disruptees. They can either take advantage of the technology, or you'll find that the license prevents you from disrupting their business - unless you're excessively lucky.
I recently heard about a guy with some sort of chemical/drug/food (forget which) patent that's running out. NONE of the industry has agreed to license it, they're just waiting for it to expire. In the meantime he's losing all of his development and attempted marketing money. Maybe he was asking absurd terms, maybe he deserved them, but the industry felt we could get along without the new product, the guy couldn't commercialize without more money than he had, so they could afford to wait.
Come to think of it, I've got a friend in the very same situation.
Re:FAT Chance! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:FAT Chance! (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, I have a digital multitrack recording studio with an embedded 20GB IDE HDD. It just happens to be formatted FAT32. I know this because the manufacturer was polite enough to sell a USB add-in card for me to connect the device to a PC or MAC for importing/exporting tracks.
Now, had the manufacturer chosen not to offer a USB port...and only allowed me to import/export tracks via the built-in CD-ROM burner, they could've still used FAT32 for the internal HDD format, and I'd have no way of knowing without cracking the thing open and plugging the HDD into a PC.
I'm certain any manufacturer of embedded products could use FAT32 for embedded drive formats, but use some kind of reverse-engineering crap in the DMCA to prohibit you from knowing it's FAT32.
Re:FAT Chance! (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, if they can depend on this being a one-time charge, it's probably cheaper for them to pay the extortion than to convert.
Re:FAT Chance! (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you can't tell what they're using, ext2 or any number of filesystems may be usable. But, if you're a manufacturer selling through a channel, you may want to offer diagnostic and repair licenses to resellers. FAT32 may be a better choice merely for the simplicity of unplugging the drive from the device and plugging it into a PC that will in most cases be running Windows for diagnostic/repair work. And it is likely perceived as easier by the manufacturer to train certified repair shops on Windows-based tools as opposed to Linux ones.
Re:FAT Chance! (Score:5, Insightful)
Prohibiting the creation of Free Software PDF readers is undeniably stifling competition.
Re:FAT Chance! (Score:5, Interesting)
"Microsoft's FAT file system license offers limited rights to issued and pending Microsoft patents on FAT file system technology, as well as rights to implement the Microsoft FAT file system specification."
It appears that Microsoft is selling a liscense to implement their filesystem. However, the liscense is for manufacturers of consumer electronics and removable media. It's unclear, based on my lack of knowledge of this legal area and the ambiguity of this document, whether (e.g.) writers of software targeting non-consumer electronics products (such as personal computers) would need to approach Microsoft for liscensing.
However, the patents all have to do with VFAT long filenames. Thus, it appears that a manufacturer may only have to refuse to deal with anything other than valid 8.3 filenames to avoid the patent liscensing hassle. I don't know how Microsoft could claim to enforce a restriction on implementing anything on FAT that's not patented; I don't believe they can, under US law, but like I said, I have a very incomplete understanding of US law in this respect.
Re:FAT Chance! (Score:5, Funny)
That's easy. Red Hat will not include the precomiled module in their binary kernel packages, but 40 new sites will pop up with incompatible RPMs of the module for various kernels. Debian will probably move it to a separate set of packages in non-free or non-US. Mandrake and Suse will do fuck-all, since they're in Europe. Gentoo users will say 'what's a binary package?' and continue compiling it into their kernels. Slackware users will say 'tgz kicks ass, dependencies are teh sux0r.'
;)
Re:FAT and CP/M and DR DOS Prior Art (Score:5, Informative)
The hardware process of the LZW compression algorithm was what as patented. You can write GIF files without using compression (literal, clear dictionary, literal, clear dictionary
Here, Microsoft's patents relate to algorithms for fitting long filenames onto a file system that only supports short filenames. They do NOT have a patent on the (V)FAT filing system. However, in working with those filing systems you may need to use algorithms which Microsoft managed to patent.
Re:The future? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft's licensing agreement lists 4 patents that it covers. All were filed since 1992, and all were granted within the last 8 years or so.
However... if you look at the materials patented, all refer to long file name support. ("Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats," "Common name space for long and short file names," etc.) If one develops a device that utilizes FAT without using long file names, I'd imagine that they'd be safe.
Going up... (Score:5, Interesting)
Gotta love submarine patents.
Is there a win32 ext2/3 filesystem driver out there anywhere?
Re:Going up... (Score:5, Informative)
Is there a win32 ext2/3 filesystem driver out there anywhere?
Searching for "win32 ext2" yields this [swin.edu.au] as the first link.
Read AND write ext2 on wondpws (Score:5, Interesting)
Which seems a bit improved on the very useful expore2fs.
I want NATIVE file system integration, VFS is NOT DEEP ENOUGH.
http://sys.xiloo.com/
Sam
Re:Going up... (Score:5, Interesting)
We need a public domain minuxfs implementation now, to be the standard.
Something must have been updated... (Score:5, Interesting)
That can't possibly be right. In the US (but nowhere else) you have a 1 year's grace period from the time of publishing an invention such that you are still allowed to patent it. Even with the USPTO's track record (!!) I honestly can't see them granting a patent based just on 1976 technology. MS must have included new ideas... or something like that.
Re:Something must have been updated... (Score:5, Funny)
Tom
The abstract from the earliest cited patent: (Score:5, Informative)
Do these devices really need compatibility with "dead" operating systems?
The second patent seems to another concerning filename formats. I haven't bothered to look at the other 2.
Demise of FAT (Score:5, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree. OSX, OS9, Linux, BSD, and almost any other OS that you can think of can read and write FAT. Any device that is to be cross-platform compatible with read/write works very well with FAT. The only other filesystem that I know of that these all read and write is ISO9660, which last time I checked didn't include long filename support without Microsoft Joliet extensions or some other after-spec hack anyway.
Microsoft isn't going to support a filesystem that makes it easier to use devices on a competitor's platform, plain and simple. OS implementers have had to reverse engineer Microsoft's ways of doing things for a long time, and if Microsoft is allowed to litigate FAT out of use, they'll use it to try to force everyone else out.
They're talking about things like long filenames.. (Score:5, Informative)
The first patent, at least, is invalid by their OWN prior art.
ext2 for Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Dammit, more Linux impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget that -- there is FAT code in the Linux kernel. More IP that smacks Linux and means that it cannot be distributed (and interoperate with windows, as FAT-based systems were the only major filesystem that both Linux and Windows can read and write out-of-box. Very bad juju.
FWIW, it is *damned* hard to write Windows filesystem drivers -- compare a small Linux filesystem -- RAMFS, at 342 lines of source -- with even a minimal Windows driver. There is an ext2 implementation with read support, though.
Oh, yes. The embedded community uses FAT all over the place. They are going to absolutely go bonkers when this hits the news.
Re:Dammit, more Linux impact (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dammit, more Linux impact (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not attacking you personally, but why is Slashdot's reaction to this sort of thing always "host it outside the U.S." or similarly sneaky tactic?
First, this issue involves DEVICES, not code. The Linux kernel doesn't appear to be at risk at all, just embedded systems. Bear in mind, of course, that these systems knowningly used a system that's copyrighted and patented. Microsoft needs to defend this patent lest they lose it. Second, the best solution to this sort of thing is to fight by the rules. If Microsoft suddenly decides to kill interoperability with thier own systems, that's fine - a lot of people would ditch Windows for Linux. Probably as many as would ditch Linux for Windows. Just yank the code from the kernel and go about your business while Microsoft loses more dual-boots to nix-only boots.
Part of the beauty of OSS is that it's a lot easier for it to lose ground on servers or desktops or whatever than it is for a corp to do the same. It hurts Microsoft a lot more to lose a Fortune 500 company to Linux than it is for Linux to lose one to Windows. Microsoft loses face AND money, we just lose a little face and go about our business - usually, nobody loses any significant money (except the sucker that switched to Windows :p ). There are far fewer people with big stakes in OSS, and, fortunately, the folks that have their fingers in it (Novell, IBM, etc.) will be willing to go to bat for it to protect themselves. Just go about your business. Microsoft is hanging themselves slowly. If we keep doing what we've been for the last several years and stay vigilant, we'll come out on top.
Dammit, would people stop saying this? (Score:5, Informative)
You're confusing Trademark law with Patent law; Trademarks must be defended lest they be abandoned, patents can be enforced against some, all, or none of those infringing on the patent at the patent-holder's whim. The entire practice of "defensive patents" rests on this.
The Patents don't specify devices or software. (Score:5, Informative)
Let's go over the Patents one by one, shall we?
5,579,517 - Common name space for long and short filenames. Filed for on April 24, 1995. This one only impacts you if you're using a Common Name Space for long and short filenames. Basically, the scheme they deployed for Chicago- references a preferred embodiment for MS-Dos 5.0 that was apparently handed to the USPTO as part of the application. Very much likely to be invalidated, though, by their OWN prior art release of Chicago to the world in December of 1993. This describes a scheme for handling long and short filenames correctly. If it's not invalidated, you might run afoul of it trying to do a VFAT type implementation.
5,745,902 - Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats. Filed for on July 6, 1992. Reading the abstract of this one, you'd have to allow renaming of just the name and preserving the extention for the purposes of keeping track of the filetype. Abstract explicitly mentions the use of a B-tree (Limits the scope of what they're claiming- you can possibly sidestep things by using red-black, AVL, etc...). They don't appear to have troubled this application with a possible prior art release, but unless you're doing the exact same thing for handling renames, etc. I don't think you're impacted by this one.
5,758,352 - Common name space for long and short filenames. Filed on September 5, 1996. A cursory reading of the Patent filing made by Microsoft leads one to believe that this is a re-application of the 5,579,517 Patent. While I'm not an IP lawyer, they appear to be claiming the same basic things in both documents. If this, in fact, the case, the 5,579,517 Patent's invalidation would likely invalidate this one. You would probably run afoul of this Patent if you attempted to implement a VFAT style filesystem.
6,286,013 - Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short file names in an operating system. Filed on January 28, 1997. This one is an EXPLICIT Patent-style description of how Windows 95/98/Me handles long filenames on an x86-32 platform. Cute. The applicablity of this Patent to anything other than an exact clone of Windows 95/98/Me is doubtful at best. They explicitly mention things like BIOS interrupts and x86 register names in their claims. Better yet, the preferred implementation was deployed to the World at large in Windows 95- TWO YEARS PRIOR to the filing date.
You should consult a Patent attorney before making any decisions regarding this request for royalties from Microsoft. However, having said this, I'd feel fairly comfortable about the situation overall based on the observations made above.
Re:Ximian next. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) first put up when Microsoft started mentioning the word "Linux". They don't do that normally since it validates the product.
2) when they started mentioning it in their financial statements.
3) when LAMP took away most of the MS Windows server growth.
4) more and more mentioning of the word "Linux" by Bill and Steve.
5) recently when Prudentials financial analysts start asking about Microsoft Windows growth prospects against Linux and Linux desktop growth.
6) Microsoft trying to pedal it's patents for $$$.
It may not be visible as a death spiral but it sure looks like there is a massive amount of "concern" in Redmond. And with all of their profits in the OS and office applications, they have nothing but cash to help them get out of this. Even giving away their software will not KILL Linux. It would only slow it down momentarily and they know this. IMHO.
There is concern in Redmond. You can be sure of that. Is the Coriolis Effect in action here? There's probably some movement already and there is no sign of an opposing force. Surely, not this patent claim.
LoB
For your delight: the patents (Score:5, Informative)
United States Patent 5,579,517 [uspto.gov]
Reynolds , et al. November 26, 1996
Common name space for long and short filenames
Abstract
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
United States Patent 5,745,902 [uspto.gov]
Miller , et al. April 28, 1998
Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats
Abstract
A multiple file name referencing system stores multiple file names in a file. These multiple file names include an operating system formatted file name and an application formatted file name. When an operating system formatted file name is created or renamed, the multiple file name referencing system automatically generates an application formatted file name having a potentially different format from, but preserving the extension of, the operating system formatted name. The multiple file name referencing system similarly generates an operating system formatted name upon creation or renaming of an application formatted name. A B-tree is provided which contains an operating system entry for the operating system formatted name and an application entry for the application formatted name, each entry containing the address of the same file to which both names refer. The multiple file name referencing system converts the operating system formatted file name to the application formatted file name by accessing the B-tree with reference to the operating system entry, and vice versa. As a result, either file name can be used to directly reference the file without requiring additional file name translation.
United States Patent 5,758,352 [uspto.gov]
Reynolds , et al. May 26, 1998
Common name space for long and short filenames
Abstract
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
United States Patent 6,286,013 [uspto.gov]
Selling unformatted (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Selling unformatted (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Selling unformatted (Score:5, Insightful)
And the "buy it blank and format it yourself" theory only works for things like USB drives. It's not as easy to format other devices -- like a PDA or any other device that has to come with some amount of software already installed.
Why Windows? (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I've worked with the FAT12, FAT16 filesystems in assembly language.
FAT is relatively well documented. IIRC, one can already format a FAT filesystem from Linux, and even if they can't, writing the drivers wouldn't take long.
But why would you use FAT in the first place? It's a very inefficient filesystem, built for ancient hardware.
Since static memory sticks have no problems with random access, it doesn't make sense to use traditional filesystems which were designed to minimize seek latency involving mechanical components. In fact, due to the block access factor, most filesystems are very inefficient when it comes to data storage.
One would think that instead of using a filesystem per se, the memory of a memory stick should be managed in a fashion similar to malloc. The difference would be named allocation - a "filename" would be associated with every section of memory allocated.
Flash memory is a block device. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Selling unformatted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Selling unformatted (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been party to meetings and technical design exercises where we struggled to remove mere pennies from the build price of a product, and were elated when we managed to do so. 25 cents is a huge cost delta for the build price of a piece of hardware.
what we've got here is... (Score:5, Insightful)
heh...
no seriously, FAT was convenient and fairly standard.. all microsoft is going to do is drive manufacturers to other (hopefully free software) schemes.... That's when we all win! THANKS MICROSOFT!
Re:what we've got here is... (Score:4, Informative)
I suspect this will drive most manufacturers to not format their media, or it will drive them to an open format, like jffs.
Re:what we've got here is... (Score:5, Informative)
Otoh, patents do not make this discrimination. The only exception is that if you used a patented technique before it was patented (but you never published it, so your work cannot be considered as prior art), then you can continue to use this technique *for personal use* even after the patent has been granted (which excludes any commercial use afaik, though I'm not certain of this). If you independently came up with it after the patent was granted, you're completely out of luck.
The reasoning is that patents exist to protect big investments in R&D, which generally wouldn't have occurred if there was no way to safeguard the results from imitation with patents. So patents are considered as some kind of necessary evil (temporary monopolies), required to promote innovation and disclosure. Of course, in case of software patents this reasoning is almost never true [ffii.org.uk] and you are pretty much stuck with only the negative sides.
good (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll bring them my broken SD-card directories so that they fix their bugs.
Apple Disk Utility (Score:5, Interesting)
Hm...since Apple's Disk Utility will let you format pretty much any writable media in FAT, will Apple have to pay Microsoft for that privilege? Will they choose to do so, or will they drop the ability?
Note to manufacturers: this will make your Mac formatted media actually cheaper to produce, so even if you don't give the consumer a discount, that's just one more reason to continue to produce Mac-compatible product...
Charging for their IP (Score:5, Informative)
"Pricing for this license is US$0.25 per unit with a cap on total royalties of $250,000 per licensee."
The $250K is the cap; that means, that is the maximum amount they will charger per license holder for the use of the FAT. Just thought it came across incorrectly.
What about Europe ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about Europe ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of the eventual European stance on software patents, manufacturers would still be hit by the patent when marketing in US or Japan.
The problem is timing (Score:5, Insightful)
The right way to do it: get the patent, announce the technology and licensing terms for it, sell licenses to however's interested. This way, manufacturers can decide whether they want to invest into that particular technology or find an alternative.
The wrong way to do it: get the patent, wait for a large number of manufacturers to widely use the technology, then announce licensing terms. This way, manufacturers have already invested a lot of resources into the tech and have no choice but to pay for the license, because switching to an alternative would cost them even more.
In an ideal world, the wrong way should be illegal and carry criminal sentences for extortion.
Long File Names (Score:5, Interesting)
Prior Art for all 4 patents (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.vcnet.com/bms/departments/innovation.ht ml [vcnet.com]
Rich.
Doesn't that just remind you (Score:5, Insightful)
The point why I think such a scheme is totally fucked and dishonest is not the fact that such patents exist, but because of the following business model:
1. Create valuable idea
It looks more and more like RMS is a true visionary.
Re:Doesn't that just remind you (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing.
But there is something wrong with creating an idea, waiting for it to become so standard that even our keychains come pre-formatted with this technology, and such that any number of 3rd parties provide support for this technology in order to conform with the "norm" (apple, linux, etc), and *THEN* expecting people to pay for it, once it's been entrenched in the economy as irreplaceable and free.
Especially when said technology was created in the '70's and patented in the '90's.
~Will
A risky move... (Score:5, Insightful)
The profit margin isn't that great on PDA's et al as it is - why would the industry want to cede a further chunk of that margin to MS? All you'd have to do is include a driver for a free file format with the PDA cradle, card reader, and/or desktop application.
Shooting themselves in the foot again (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll get away with this because they're big enough. And they'll make some money. But this, and similar practices, will work against them in the long run.
Licensing now, after all this time? (Score:4, Interesting)
How can they enforce this, if memory cards/sticks for cameras have been doing this for years now? If they haven't be pursuing the patents enfringement before this, can they now?
What about pre-formatted floppies?
Which FAT? Older patents must have expired by now (Score:5, Interesting)
(subject) (Score:5, Interesting)
DR-DOS , 20 years, and floppies (Score:5, Interesting)
And if they can stop a manufacturer from delivering a product such as a USB drive pre-formatted with FAT, then can't they do the same with a pre-formatted floppy disk? For that matter, can't they do the same with a floppy disk that contains software? Anyone who sells PC software on floppies will owe Microsoft money! (There are less today than there were just five years ago, thanks to CD's, but there are still many small businesses out there. I just got a driver on a floppy last week with something I bought).
Long file name stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
The four patents cited all relate to Microsoft's kludge for shoehorning long file names into a filesystem that can only take 8+3 names. You know, Microsoft -> Micros~1.
First I'm going to get obligatory whinges out of the way. It's ludicrous that this is patentable. The patent is stupidly long and verbose, probably to make this 'innovation' seem more significant than it actually is. The patent is also worded to sound as though this is a useful general idea, rather than something that you'll only ever see in FAT because everyone else is sane enough to just use a better filesystem.
On a more practical note, these patents cover only the long name -> 8.3 stuff. Those digital cameras that write 8.3 names (DSC00001.JPG, DSC00002.JPG, ...) should be fine. Shipping blank but FAT-formatted media should also fall clear of the patent's grasp - the patents don't cover the FAT filesystem itself, just the 'VFAT' Win9x method of fitting long filenames into FAT. Furthermore, the patents seem to cover algorithms for inserting long filenames into the directory tables - implementations that don't write, but only read data, might be okay.
Simple blank FAT, might I add, has been around for at least 17 years, so any patents on it should have expired by now.
Ob-disclaimer: I've only skimmed the patents, and I'm not a lawyer. I'm probably wrong.
ISO 9660 (Score:5, Interesting)
Talk about submarine patents. Floppies have been shipping FAT for *decades*!
Seems to me... (Score:5, Insightful)
The only reason you'd really care about this is if you run a large company that makes FAT devices and want to insure that your FAT-system is 100% compatible with specs (which are controlled by Microsoft). Otherwise, you wouldn't care... You'd just look up the well published info already available for free on the 'net.
RTFA and be careful with the FUD (Score:5, Informative)
That doesn't mean they won't go there, just that they haven't yet. Still, the typical knee-jerk reactions here are as yet unwarrented.
Very good move! (Score:5, Informative)
FAT is a terrible format for Flash media, because it constantly updates some variables in first several sectors of the disk. The effect was mentioned some time ago on
So it might actually give some incentive for vendors to move to JFFS or similar FS _designed_ with this flash-specific limitation in mind.
rrw
FreeDOS not free? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, you could have it use another FS (ext2) but can you imagine a DOS not using FAT?
can someone look over the patent please (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:can someone look over the patent please (Score:5, Informative)
Cleanroom implementation not an option with patent (Score:5, Insightful)
This is certainly not true. With copyright law, it's illegal to copy code. With patent law, ideas are patented. Wheter it's implemented in a 'clean room' or not, that really doesn't matter.
THAT's the reason why we detest software patents in the first place!
To be able to bring out preformatted FAT flash devices without paying the Microsoft license, one would have to claim rights to 'prior art'.
In contrary with copyright law, however, it's the responsability of the IP holder to come down on the infridger (so as long as you don't get a letter from MS, you aren't obligated to take action).
Yet IANAL but in my past businesses talked about these issues alot with lawyers.
Regarding the question wrt European manufacturers usage of the FAT filesystem. First needs to be seen if these patents are also valid in Europe or not. After initial issuing a patent in Europe, US or Japan it's automatically valid for 3 years in all of these regions. After this period it needs to be registered in the specific region. As I presume these are quiet old patents, one should look into this.
However, there still is controversy regarding software patents and its enforcebility in Europe. European software patents should also have a hardware part. This license has a hardware part, but the patents themselves not. ;-)
You might want to consult a patent lawyer to verify this, but I would bet that it's unenforceable in Europe. However, I wouldn't bet on this for 250k USD
A lot of smaller device vendors will probably sell the unformatted version after they receive letters from MS (which is a pity as FAT is readable/writable by Win/Mac/Linux).
A lot of users will now unknowingly format their cards using NTFS making it harder to exchange data with non-Windows users...
Regarding the FAT driver in Linux; as this MS license only speaks of preformatting digital media in the FAT filesystem, this is not an issue today.
Could Microsoft ask money for inclusion of the FAT driver in the Linux kernel?
Remember, patents are about ideas, not about the actual implementation or even in which language certain algoritms are written (it's about what is accomplished, not about how it's actually done). So as the FAT filesystem is patented technology, they could theoretically take action.
However, the action needs to be taken by them first. If 'prior art' can prove that the Linux implementation is based upon technology very simular than the patents issued, a case in court might prove the patents to be not really valid.
Such a thing would also destroy all possible revenues from licensing programs such as these (it's higly unlikely that device manufacturers will try to prove they had access to prior art, the long-bearded fs developers in the OpenSource community are probably less easy to convince - especially since the patents where only filed in 1995).
If the outcome of a legal case would be different, chances are higher that distributions would just drop the filesystem driver instead of paying money to Microsoft.
So, to me it seems that Microsoft would have more to loose than to gain from going after the FAT driver in Linux.
copyright.
slashdot effect (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear Sirs:
I'm a computer professional. On rare occasions I still used floppy disks that I have formatted and put business product on. I might distribute two or three a year to business contacts this way. It has come to my attention that Microsoft now wishes to enforce it's patents on the FAT file system and I believe that the floppies that I distribute might fall under this extension of you monopoly power. Therefore I would like to request that you provide me with the proper paperwork and licensing agreements so that I can pay my 25 cents each time I do distribute a FAT formatted floppy with my product on it.
If we can take down web sites, perhaps the Microsoft legal department should receive a few million requests from people who want to be sure they don't cheat bill out of his two bits when they format and distribute a floppy.
Karma whoring? (Score:5, Informative)
U.S. Patent #5,579,517 [uspto.gov] Common name space for long and short filenames
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
U.S. Patent #5,745,902 [uspto.gov] Method and system for accessing a file using file names having different file name formats
A multiple file name referencing system stores multiple file names in a file. These multiple file names include an operating system formatted file name and an application formatted file name. When an operating system formatted file name is created or renamed, the multiple file name referencing system automatically generates an application formatted file name having a potentially different format from, but preserving the extension of, the operating system formatted name. The multiple file name referencing system similarly generates an operating system formatted name upon creation or renaming of an application formatted name. A B-tree is provided which contains an operating system entry for the operating system formatted name and an application entry for the application formatted name, each entry containing the address of the same file to which both names refer. The multiple file name referencing system converts the operating system formatted file name to the application formatted file name by accessing the B-tree with reference to the operating system entry, and vice versa. As a result, either file name can be used to directly reference the file without requiring additional file name translation.
U.S. Patent #5,758,352 [uspto.gov] Common name space for long and short filenames
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short filenames. In this common namespace, a long filename and a short filename are provided for each file. Each file has a short filename directory entry and may have at least one long filename directory entry associated with it. The number of long filename directory entries that are associated with a file depends on the number of characters in the long filename of the file. The long filename directory entries are configured to minimize compatibility problems with existing installed program bases.
U.S. Patent #6,286,013 [uspto.gov] Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short file names in an operating system
An operating system provides a common name space for both long filenames and short
Gadgets Don't Need It (Score:5, Insightful)
Using no filesystem will get the best usage of the memory chips. Please note that a 1440k floppy won't give you that but perhaps 10% less. As usual M$ shoots itself in the foot and camera makers can advertise 10% more pictures to a card. Tar would work nicely as a 'filesystem' and as far as I know that is free and even Windows understands it. Tar is very efficient but not exactly 'random access' something not usually needed in a camera.
No filesystem or minimal formatting works well on all removable media. That includes DVDs and CDs which will hold considerably more if you don't use cd9660 or UDF. If you have Unix (and SCSI) try it if media is intended to be streamed. Any further discussion of this is offtopic.
Microsoft is blowing smoke (Score:5, Informative)
Knee-jerk that hurts M$:memory with bootable Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, just as Microsoft may have assumed, manufacturers could either use FAT and pay up, or sell their media unformatted, in which case the customer needs a M$(-licensed) product to format it to FAT.
However manufacturers will probably want to test an initial write/read cycle, but if (for the sake of quality control) they simply format their media to something else (let's call it FOSFS, the hypothetical Free and Open Source File System
If this has been Microsoft's reasoning, they have neglected to consider another possibility:
On current removable media of 256 megs and up, an entire Linux distribution takes up less than 10% of capacity:
Unless the boot process from USB memory requires more than a rudimentary, non-infringing "allusion to FAT", such media could not just be formatted in an empty FOSFS, but it might rather be sold with preinstalled software such as this (compiled without FAT support of course): Cameras etc. could switch to the new FOSFS immediately, for PCs would not need to support it "out of the box", as the removable media itself would actually "be its own driver" (and media viewer, and provide network connectivity, etc.).
In this case, such "not-so-blank media" should certainly bear the penguin logo as a "seal of quality".
To justify adding a Creative Commons mark next to it, one could even fill the remaining space with some free and open (motion) pictures and/or audio to be played on first use.
Microsoft itself would have to catch up and release Windows support for the FOSFS before everyone sends and serves pictures from some sort of "USB Linux".
If only one major manufacturer of removable memory takes an approach like this, at M$ the employee who came up with that "bright idea" of a FAT license but failed to see this option may have a hard time explaining...
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you familiar with capitalism? Shareholders? There is no such thing as 'enough money' for a corporation.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
-B
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
And, while I'm rambling, what about the FAT driver in the Linux kernel? Is it in violation of the patent? I really don't know, and I'm too lazy to research it myself. (Isn't that what
What's really funny.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a computer at work die recently. The motherboard popped a chips as it turns out. The problem was that it messed up the hard drive (NTFS) in the process. I couldn't get the drive to mount on any other NT machines so I tried running a Linux distro from CD. It mounted the drive without problem and was able to read most of the contents (some of it was still gone but I was able to recover my work from that day at least). So in this case Linux was better at handling NTFS than Win2K was.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
NTFS, FAT, FAT32 [microsoft.com]
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
The linked article does not mention home computers. Microsoft wants license fees from:
1) Manufacturers of solid state removeable memory devices
and
2) Manufacturers of certain types of consumer electronics that use the FAT file system:
portable digital still cameras
portable digital video cameras
portable digital still/video cameras
portable digital audio players
portable digital video players
portable digital audio/video players
multifunction printers
electronic photo frames
electronic musical instruments
standard televisions
Do you think you'll ever buy one of those? Then it'll affect you.
Re:Well, DUH! (Score:5, Insightful)
As noted elsewhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
to start charging after so many years, for something
noone has ever charged for before, after it has
become something which has become a de facto standard,
often implemented in hardware. Like GIFs were, their
patent should be ignored, and more ideally, legally
shot down.
Was FAT really innovative anyway? The patents just
cover modern issues probably not even implemented
on 95% of the FAT-handling devices (e.g. my
digital camera). From what I remember of CP/M's
filesystem, FAT didn't seem to be markedly
different.
On another node, as IBM and Microsoft had
cross-licensing for most of their early
DOS-related stuff (remember PC-DOS?), should
their claim not be invalidated, could they simply
grant the world an open license for it?