2007/2/28, Alex Smit <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Some things might indeed be possible to rewrite. But how are you going to > solve the problem that Microsoft holds some patents on FAT. The only way to > solve that is to stop supporting FAT. That is that whole problem with a > patent it's not a thing, it's an idea.
[quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_FAT_Patent#FAT_licensing] «Additionally, in the document "Microsoft Extensible Firmware Initiative FAT 32 File System Specification, FAT: General Overview of On-Disk Format" published by Microsoft (version 1.03, 2000-12-06), Microsoft specifically grants a number of rights, which many readers have interpreted as permitting operating system vendors to implement FAT.» That's somewhat a gray area. I think they must let other OSs implement FAT and derivatives because of the need of interoperability. Like someone noted on the Show Us The Code, do you think they wouldn't do anything, if they knew they could enforce that specifical patent against linux? That's why I think it's FUD: if they were so sure, they would have sued long time ago. bardo _______________________________________________ arch mailing list [email protected] http://www.archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch
