[Freedos-devel] FAT patents and freedos?
Slashdot has an article Microsoft FAT Patent Upheld http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/11/0555252tid=155tid=109 The discussion also links to the page FAT File System Technology License http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp Does anyone know if this is a problem for FreeDOS or not? The linked page about FAT license only speaks about using FAT on a media, and not about products using FAT. -- Markus Laire --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_idv37alloc_id865op=click ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] FAT patents and freedos?
Markus Laire wrote: Slashdot has an article Microsoft FAT Patent Upheld http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/11/0555252tid=155tid=109 The discussion also links to the page FAT File System Technology License http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp Does anyone know if this is a problem for FreeDOS or not? The linked page about FAT license only speaks about using FAT on a media, and not about products using FAT. Right, the page you linked to: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp is the important one. As I understand it, the impact will be to manufacturers of devices. Specifically mentioned in the fat.asp page are: -A license for removable solid state media manufacturers and: -A license for manufacturers of certain consumer electronics devices -jh -- I'm sorry my president's an idiot. I didn't vote for him. --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637alloc_id=16865op=click ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] FAT patents and freedos?
I started looking more into the patents in question, and I'm not really concerned with respect to FreeDOS. The 3 patents listed on http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp are: * U.S. Patent #5,579,517 Common name space for long and short filenames * U.S. Patent #5,758,352 Common name space for long and short filenames * U.S. Patent #6,286,013 Method and system for providing a common name space for long and short file names in an operating system The abstracts for each look identical: 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. None of these are directly related to FAT, per se. They are more directly related to VFAT LFN support. IANAL, but this doesn't look very applicable to FreeDOS sans LFN. -jh Links: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2Sect2=HITOFFp=1u=/netahtml/search-bool.htmlr=1f=Gl=50co1=ANDd=ptxts1=5579517.WKU.OS=PN/5579517RS=PN/5579517 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2Sect2=HITOFFp=1u=/netahtml/search-bool.htmlr=1f=Gl=50co1=ANDd=ptxts1=5758352.WKU.OS=PN/5758352RS=PN/5758352 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2Sect2=HITOFFp=1u=/netahtml/search-bool.htmlr=1f=Gl=50co1=ANDd=ptxts1=6286013.WKU.OS=PN/6286013RS=PN/6286013 -- I'm sorry my president's an idiot. I didn't vote for him. --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637alloc_id=16865op=click ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
Re: [Freedos-devel] FAT patents and freedos?
If something ever were to come up to restrict FreeDOS support for FAT, it would always be possible to implement another filesystem, such as LeanFS or ext2. -- Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees. David Letterman (1947 - ) See ya --- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_idv37alloc_id865op=click ___ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
