Microsoft Signs Licensing Agreement With Research In Motion

People who diet successfully may also want to consider signing a patent licensing agreement so they can have broad access to the latest exFAT.

As a proprietary filesystem, exFat is unethical as it restricts the ability of people to freely share information.

A better choice would be ext4, where you don't have to worry about getting sued by Micro$oft for using it.

Proprietary software is not unethical. You may believe that it is, but most people do not.

damicatz said:

As a proprietary filesystem, exFat is unethical as it restricts the ability of people to freely share information.

A better choice would be ext4, where you don't have to worry about getting sued by Micro$oft for using it.

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Team Soapbox, go!

damicatz said:

As a proprietary filesystem, exFat is unethical as it restricts the ability of people to freely share information.

A better choice would be ext4, where you don't have to worry about getting sued by Micro$oft for using it.

Click to expand...

And Apple$ $oftware$$$$ is any better, how?

/in before lock

damicatz said:

As a proprietary filesystem, exFat is unethical as it restricts the ability of people to freely share information.

A better choice would be ext4, where you don't have to worry about getting sued by Micro$oft for using it.

Click to expand...

What restrictions? RIM certainly won't have to worry, as it was licensed to them.

damicatz said:

As a proprietary filesystem, exFat is unethical as it restricts the ability of people to freely share information.

A better choice would be ext4, where you don't have to worry about getting sued by Micro$oft for using it.

Click to expand...

I'm beginning to wonder why you're even bothering with this forum, seeing how you seem to hate everything here.

Go here: http://www.sewforum.com

There's all sorts of threads in there that talks about sewing, knitting and quilting. Perhaps that's something that'll interest you? Or do you have something against $inger and M¢Call as well?

damicatz said:

As a proprietary filesystem, exFat is unethical as it restricts the ability of people to freely share information.

Click to expand...

Windows, Linux, and OSX all have read/write support for exFAT... how does is restrict sharing information when the information contained on an exFAT volume can be read and written by all major operating systems?

FAT??? Kill it with fire.

Skripka said:

FAT??? Kill it with fire.

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exFAT (sometimes called FAT64) is actually a modern rethink of the file system. Many ideas were pulled from NTFS to bring it up to speed, and free space bitmaps were implemented to prevent fragmentation.

exFAT was designed to be an optimal file system for flash-based media, and has been used as the primary file system for Windows CE based devices for years.

Unknown-One said:

Windows, Linux, and OSX all have read/write support for exFAT... how does is restrict sharing information when the information contained on an exFAT volume can be read and written by all major operating systems?

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It restricts the sharing of information because it is impossible to legally make a compatible implementation in the US without paying royalties. This makes it incompatible with free software.

There are free software implementations because not everyone lives in a country that is owned by the corporations; most countries are much more restrictive on what you can and cannot patent. Distributing them, however, in the US, without Microsoft's "permission" will put you at risk for lawsuits.

Microsoft's strategy, like other patent trolls, is to obfuscate which patents they are actually accusing you of violating. The only way to find out what patents you are alleged to have violated is to either take them to court or to pay them licensing fees (and they make you sign an NDA that forbids you from disclosing the patent numbers). It took someone actually calling their bluff and suing them to be able to figure out the patents they were asserting and they have tons of prior art. Unfortunately, no one, least of all the free software community, has the millions of dollars needed to actually fight this and most people either shut down or pay licensing fees.

Cerulean said:

And Apple$ $oftware$$$$ is any better, how?

/in before lock

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Apple doesn't make ext4 and has nothing to do with its development.

damicatz said:

It restricts the sharing of information because it is impossible to legally make a compatible implementation in the US without paying royalties. This makes it incompatible with free software.

Click to expand...

Incorrect, there are FUSE drivers for exFAT that is perfectly legal to use in the US. You can find one such driver here (the project is even hosted in the US): http://code.google.com/p/exfat/

They don't pay royalties because they don't charge for the software. This allows information on exFAT volumes to be read for free by anyone... so I'm still not seeing the problem.