On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 16:03, Casper Hornstrup wrote:> http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.aspsigh...Looks pretty bad, actually. We're going to have to think about this. This patent really can't be licensed for use with a GPL'd operatingsystem unless the fundamental terms are changed. CDs and DVDs would still be usable, and floppy disks might be if wedon't implement any patented things (FAT existed in 1985, and all thosepatents are expired now). There is a problem with CD, and DVD as well. You may be able to implement ISO-9660 without a hitch, but microsoft's Joliet and Romeo (less known) file descriptors are the IP of Microsoft corp, and if they want to play the Filesystem IP game, they could get you there too. While most CDs on the market contain an ISO-9660 volume descriptor, as well as a Joliet one, that could change in the future as a marketing pitfall issued by microsoft. As for media exchange- The FAT/NTFS pitfall will be most apparent with media devices o!
f the
CompactFlash, and 'super diskette' varieties. Devices such as USB flash drives, or Zip disks. Most media these days is NOT distributed on floppy diskettes, so that would be a minimal pitfall- But, we could get tricksy with the use of FAT file system. Microsoft is licensing to hardware developers for the use of FAT-- this means that Iomega, and CompactFlash will have to take out licenses. If the hardware is licensed to use FAT, does the OS really HAVE to license it as well? IE-- if you use an internal Zip drive (property of Iomega corp for design), wouldnt Iomega have to take out a license from M$ to use the FAT file system? Is that license transferable? If it is, then it should be within reasonable argument that the use of FAT on that particular hardware device is sanctioned. This means that FAT could be supported fully on such devices, since the license has been paid by Iomega (or with CF devices, by CompactFlash) For older, legacy devices, such as the old school flop!
py disk
controller however, you would have to disable support. No FAT floppies.... (unless you have an LS 120, or so- might make sony happy if there is suddenly an increased interest in the product)I could of course be wrong on all this- copyright and patent laws arent my forte- It just seems to me that if microsoft is selling licenses to hardware vendors- that is the target license model. If you support FAT (only) on licensed hardware devices, what is the problem?
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I personally know that Linux uses open source drivers and the file
management system is about as dependable as your going to get. I'm pretty
sure also that the K desktop enviroment people are working towards making
their desktop mouse driven to make it easier to work with and a lot more
like windows. I suspect if you can break the file management part of the
Linux Kernel from the Linux kernel and add it to the Konquerer file
management system of the KDE you will have a mouse driven file management
system that is free of patent problems.
Just a guess but I thought that it was worth mentioning.
The konquerer system can be found at http://www.kde.org and I'm pretty
sure one of you knows where to find the linux kernel.
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As far as I know, the GDI subsystem is not complete
enough to run a full system shell like Explorer just
yet. I dont keep up with the CVS (I am a very very
bad person), so if there is some form of prototypical
support for a menu system, like LiteShell (basically
JUST a menu- nothing more), I wouldnt know about it.
Others might be more helpful.
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>On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 18:55, Wierd Wierd wrote:
>> There is a problem with CD, and DVD as well. You
>may be able to
>> implement ISO-9660 without a hitch, but microsoft's
Joliet and Romeo
>> (less known) file descriptors are the IP of
Microsoft corp
>True. For these cases, I think we have to implement
the non-patented
>stuff and keep an eye on the marketplace for
incompatbile CDs. I think
>we'll need to take the same approach wrt FAT, for
what that's worth.
>I thought UDF (dvd format) had LFN support built-in.
>Does anyone know the patent status of ISO9660 and
UDF? It sure would be
>a bummer to find out that they are patented too.
>Also, whence cometh El Toritio?
A blurb on ISO-9660 that might have some relevance.
Seems ISO 9660 is a joint project... You might look
into the members of the 'high Sierra' group to find
out more.
http://www.tu-clausthal.de/~rzsjs/iso9660.html
I can however be more helpful on the origins of the El
Torito bootable ISO-9660 spec.
http://www.cdpage.com/Compact_Disc_Variations/danaboot.html
(ps- sorry about the problems with thread heirarchy-
yahoo's poster isnt the greatest at times...)
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Well, the current official release cannot yet handle
liteshell. Perhaps when 0.1.6 is released, that might
change. If it cant handle something like liteshell,
the odds of it handling much more than something
REALLY REALLY primative (like WinHello) are very low.
When 0.1.6 is released, I intend to test it against
liteshell again.
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I suppose that is so- but that is not exactly so with
CompactFlash, or other digital media devices....
This gives an idea. If you truely NEED a floppy
diskette solution, is it possible to tell the
difference between a normal floppy diskette, and a
SmartMedia floppy diskette adaptor?
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>To take another example, WAV MP3 OGG etc... All audio formats. All could
>have a common interface, so any program could read from and write to these
>files seamlessly, and the handler would handle the
>compression/decompression.
I dont think this really needs to be an OS feature but it might be nice if any applications that come with ReactOS offered sort of plug in file formats. You could easily write say an MSPaint clone that used COM objects to access image files. 3rd parties would then be able to write their own COM object for their own proprietary format. As good as this would be I dont think it needs integrating with the kernel but it should maybe something to bear in mind when people start to write applications to be shipped with ReactOS.
I remember the good old days of 4DOS command interpreter. It gave you
long file names by having a hidden DESCRIPT.ION file in each directory.
This file contained the 8.3 filename and long file names. Simple.
-----Original Message-----
From: KJK::Hyperion [mailto:noog@libero.it]
Sent: Friday, 5 December 2003 1:19 p.m.
To: ros-general(a)reactos.com
Subject: Re: [ros-general] Microsoft wants royalties for use of FAT
At 23.03 04/12/2003, you wrote:
>http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp
I bet it's not about FAT, but VFAT, i.e. long filenames on FAT. Am I right?
Well, this is no news. I remember long filename support on DR-DOS was
unofficial and not entirely legal, exactly because of this patent
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As far as i can tell, the patents don't stop the use of the FAT
file system layout or structures, they only relate to the creation
of long file names. Therefore we can still use FAT and even 'read'
long file names, but just not generate them without infingement.
-----Original Message-----
From: Vizzini [mailto:vizzini@plasmic.com]
Sent: Friday, 5 December 2003 11:54 a.m.
To: ros-general(a)reactos.com
Subject: Re: [ros-general] Microsoft wants royalties for use of FAT
On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 16:03, Casper Hornstrup wrote:
> http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp
sigh...
Looks pretty bad, actually. We're going to have to think about this.
This patent really can't be licensed for use with a GPL'd operating
system unless the fundamental terms are changed.
CDs and DVDs would still be usable, and floppy disks might be if we
don't implement any patented things (FAT existed in 1985, and all those
patents are expired now).
Things could get really sticky with digital cameras, mp3 players, etc...
I'd be curious to see how RMS would respond to this. Steven, would you
care to run this by him?
Also, I fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg. MS also has a
royalty deal on the website for ClearType, and I guarantee they have
thousands of patents that cover all of the obvious things. I guess
we'll just have to deal with them as they come up.
A quick US patent database search shows 2,884 patents assigned to MS
since 1976. On further review, it appears that every single one has
issued since 1986, meaning that every one of them is valid and
enforcable.
Joy.
-Vizzini
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