Microsoft wants royalties for use of FAT - Ros-general

10 Dec 2003

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What is the legal status of HPFS- I know it was
designed by microsoft, but from what I understand, IBM
owns IP rights-- Is the patent on it still valid, and
enforceable? If not, then it might be something to
look at.  You might be able to take HPFS, and modify
it to store DOS short names, for the benefit of the
DOS subsystem later on.  I think IBM would be less
eager to sue our pants off for using an HPFS variant,
than MS would be for using a FAT or NTFS variant.
On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, Vizzini wrote:
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On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 19:17, Rick Parrish wrote:
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Waldo Alvarez wrote:
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Let's keep with NTFS and FAT and with time
design a new patent free
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filesystem. If M$ complaints then we take away
the drivers and ppl will be able to get them >from
.previous releases. The FSF did that with XMMS >and
patents with MP3s.
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Works for me. Sort of like limping along on MP3s
and GIFs until
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patent/license free OGG and PNG support is ready.
In the United States, liability for patent
infringement exists whether
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or not you've been notified by the patent holder of
such infringement.
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In other words, if you accidentally step on someone
else's IP, they will
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be able to sue you for royalties whether or not it
was your "fault".
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It's a pure liability - no fault is required.
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In any case the law is already broken.
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Furthermore, courts have a history of stiffer
penalites (i.e. higher
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royalty payments) for infringers who *knew* they
were infringing.
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That's why you see "patent pending" on lots of
manufactured items.
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Bad. That means distributing NTFS and FAT in another
release is asking for 
more trouble.
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Finally, as I said before, both developers and end
users are liable for
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patent infringement.
With these points in mind, I think we need an
official policy of
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avoiding patents as much as we possibly can while
retaining Windows
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system compatibility.  If this means (for example)
defaulting to a
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non-FAT, non-NTFS filesystem, that's what we have
to do.
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True. You are totally right!
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I was thinking this yesterday. What about using an
NTFS a little bit 
modified. In a way you can reuse the code written for
the  drivers already 
written  and make the conversion easier. It won't be
NTFS. I don't like 
too much this but could be a solution.
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The other choice I was thinking. What about finding
some company that 
already have the license to use the patents and put
them in charge of the 
drivers in exchange for some advising in ROS. They
will not have to spend 
a cent for it (except for the lawyer maybe) and will
not have to write a 
single line of code. I'm sure many will like the
deal, even if there is 
trouble in the future because getting in trouble
could give them more money.
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I prefer this choice as there will be not need to
invent yet another 
filesystem, ReactOS will be more compatible and
everything can continue 
the way it is.
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The question is, How legal would it be?
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Best Regards
Waldo Alvarez
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-Vizzini

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