Microsoft charges for FAT usage

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-04 09:42am

The most widely used filesystem on the planet, FAT (and descendants thereof) now has a licensing fee. If a manufacturer formats a flash device it as FAT, they'll have to pay up.

Link.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-12-04 02:44pm

Now watch as EXT2 comes back into the spotlight

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-04 05:11pm

Alas, FAT/FAT32 is the most widely supported file system, thus it's convenient for flash memory.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-12-04 07:30pm

What the fuck? Someone countersue M$!

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-12-04 07:34pm

What's a flash device? Is a Zip drive one?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-04 09:29pm

Shinova wrote:What's a flash device? Is a Zip drive one?

Like one of those keychain USB drives, or the removable media for most digital cameras or whatnot.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-12-05 01:26am

Sounds like they could charge the makers of Linux's "fdisk" or "disk manager" or whatever it's called for formatting a partition using FAT... weird

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-05 01:36am

Hrm. Some new things I've been hearing is that this license is for official documentation, code and support and only applies to FAT32 (as opposed to FAT16). Reverse-engineering FAT apparently is fine.

Drooling Iguana · Post by **Drooling Iguana** » 2003-12-05 01:51am

Wouldn't any patents on the FAT filesystem have expired long ago?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-12-05 01:53am

Drooling Iguana wrote:Wouldn't any patents on the FAT filesystem have expired long ago?

IIRC, it was filed in 1995 (probably for some change or addition to the original - FAT has changed quite a few times).