MS patent on FAT a problem for ros?

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menn
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Post by menn »

oiaohm wrote:Some Serious points my Dosemu does run with MS Dos and PC Dos.

So its not a tech option its fact.
not what i meant- i mean linux is foss and dosemu is foss and freedos is foss. they work together beatuifully and one won't fall without the others making a stink. maybe you disagree and with good reason, but this is what i believe. injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and i don't believe that if someone is fighting a foss thing like freedos linux people will all go (who cares, they're just a free DOS, we don't care about dos anyway) - that's why i said it's only technically an option, wasn't saying it wouldn't run ibm and msdos. if MS really layed into a great thing like freedos or say, firefox linux people would have a fit- as they should. okay, i know SOME wouldn't care. i bet illiad of UF would, and i don't think he draws any issues that don't matter-

um, well i mean issues outside the strip. but then i'm also a grc fan, and i can tell not many here are, so i'm willing to show some naivite and not feel too bad about it.
oiaohm wrote:People have to learn that floss runs on cash not good will.
half-true. people may forget or simply not know that cash is necessary to keep a big foss project running. but foss is VERY much about good will. it's about both. i'd think anyone who thought differently was very odd or very jaded.

i was most interested in your point about dosbox tho. quite sound, imo, and a good point. i just hope it will get faster... right now the difference between cmd.exe in ros and dosbox in win98 is like the difference between ros on hardware and ros in qemu.
FOSS="MY Computer"
drm="NOT My Computer" http://eff.org
Floyd
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Location: The frozen part of the USA

Post by Floyd »

GaeTaN wrote:NTFS is the way to go :)
with FAT questionable and NTFS copyrighted, i suggest we use something like ext2 or 3 and some kind of translation layer to translate features (such as using NTFS-like ACLs) or perhaps a modified ext2 or 3 to gain the features of FAT and NTFS. but since floppies and flash drives all use FAT, support for reading and writing still has to be in there. this could be a real quandry.
:shock:
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MadRat
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Post by MadRat »

How do they copyright a file system? Did you mean it is protected by patents?
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oiaohm
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Post by oiaohm »

MadRat
How do they copyright a file system? Did you mean it is protected by patents?
NTFS is protected by patents. It is one feature if Microsoft strong arms that Linus might have to remove from the Linux kernel. Since Microsoft is the base developer of NTFS it will be verry hard to find some company to provide the linux kernel with protection.

Fat in the Linux kernel is protected from patent attacks due to agreements between Microsoft and IBM.

Why will the Linux personal give a rats about freedos not having long filename support.

Foss most likely will not have the complete backing of the linux consortum. Most powerful group in the open source world. The consortum is big enought to buy Microsoft out with their spare cash without effecting general operations.

FreeDos could solve their problems by simplely entering agreement with IBM to update their PC Dos line. IBM most likely will lend a hand in this regard what do they lose really.

Why spend cash to fight a fight when some aggreement forming can solve the problem.

IBM never developed a Windows Based OS so we cannot slide under using their protection completely. Wine is developed from a Windows emulator on OS/2 warp. Ie IBM protection.

IBM stops alot of Microsoft attacks on open source.

Ideas in floss start with good will but is cash that protects it. If Linux systems are attacked as SCO has learn there is huge money around to protect it. Freedos lacks this kind of protection We lack this kind of protection. Money is our shield. Question what agreements could Reactos form to protect itself. Without aggreements we are dependant on the base Floss to protect us. They always try there best but no where as scarry as the 50 person legal team of Linux Consortum that entered the court to take on SCO.

If Wine was attack we could be sure of the Linux Legal force protecting us no Wine attack we have to prepare as if we are on our own.

Better to be ready with other filesystems then force to pull the only one that works placing reactos back in pre-alpha.

Money is a major factor. The Lead Linux groups exist to make money and protect Linux and other profitable OS's. Floss is not the big money of protection.

Linux does not fail just because it has to pull one filesystem. We cannot be dependant on MS filesystems if we are more reason for Microsoft to shut us down.
Carlo Bramix
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Location: Italy

Post by Carlo Bramix »

Hello.
About two years after the news about Microsoft and its patent on FATx file systems.
Perhaps it would be interesting to see how the situation is now.
I could not find much informations about current state, but it seems that at the end Microsoft won his battle.
Do we need to wait other eight years for having this patent expired?

Sincerely,

Carlo Bramini
Sand
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Post by Sand »

Where the servers of ReactOS are located? Probably it's outside the US.
Sand
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Post by Sand »

oiaohm wrote:MadRat
Wine is developed from a Windows emulator on OS/2 warp. Ie IBM protection.
Really?
Haos
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Post by Haos »

If things would go really wrong, we could drop fat and use ext2 as soon, as our IFS gets better. There is a really good Win implementation of ext2...
GreatLord
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Post by GreatLord »

wine is devloped for linux.

about fat, ms got alot pantent for fat revoken.
see pubpat for more info. and the pantent is only vaild in usa.
cppm
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Post by cppm »

if the patent is technically on microsofts vfat, ie. the use of bytes 0x0C–0x15 of the directory entry to store long file names. (IMO a magnificently trivial piece of IP) if it ever were to become an issue then we could instead use the same system used by IBM in OS/2 ie putting LFN's into a special hidden directory in the root directory.

Advantage: we free up 0x0C–0x15 to do as we please, one could add security descriptors, or a unique index that ties in with attribute listings in that special directory

Disadvantage: Becomes completely incompatible with the MS vfat, so people who use flash drives on ROS will be wondering why "English Homework.doc" has become "ENGLIS~1.DOC" on Windows, or vice versa.

hmmm, it could be optional.

Also, should we be worried about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa914353.aspx

Since if this becomes the new FAT for flash drives, then that'll be much more patentable...
oiaohm
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Post by oiaohm »

cppm technically not a major problem. MS had a lot of trouble with that patent. Novell and IBM both have the same kind of thing patented on other file systems. Also many years MS released the code to do long filenames without any mark of a patent. So enforcing it could fall under entrapment.

ExFat is not a issue you just put a sync program on the device. Ros never will need to read it if MS has a patent on it. Besides most of those changes overlap with Novells own version of fat. So any patents on ExFat would be shakey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetWare_File_System Novell alteration of Fat. If ms want to be a prick just bring it back from the graveyard. Its provides security features.

If we cannot work out NTFS to write to it dependablely not reason why latter releation of netware could not be used. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novell_Storage_Services.

Big thing people are forgetting drivers writting for Ros should in theory be portable to Windows without much work. Thinking Linux supports Novell_Storage_Services. Ext2 is getting very old in tooth and trouble making for Linux users. Ext3 and Ext4 is needed. Not Ext2 that require rebuilding of journing after using on a Ext3
tomleem
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JFS for ROS?

Post by tomleem »

mikedep333 wrote:Since the FAT patent is now more likely to be upheld, are you guys going to focus more on implementing another FS?
http://jfs.sourceforge.net/
Port it from Linux? :?:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux ... l-jfs.html
"JFS overview
How the Journaled File System cuts system restart times to the quick
"
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-fs.html

8)

It is being used in the 2.0 version of eComStation. http://www.ecomstation.com 8)
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GreatLord
Developer
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Location: Sweden

Post by GreatLord »

as I told fat pantent is revoken from ms
read pubpat about the fat pantent they manger get it revok
Geoz
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Joined: Mon Oct 22, 2007 10:20 am

Post by Geoz »

I hope that you are aware this is a total farce. Microsoft may hold this ridiculous patent in the United States, but that's it. Zip. Nada. This patent is totally invalid in Europe. It's impossible for software to be patented in Europe and Russia, where most of our devs are, furthermore, Microsoft is going to have the impossible task of trying to find out everyone who downloaded ROS. They would need IP addresses, which, as you guessed are protected data, and cannot be handed over to America, as this constitutes a breach of Directive 95/46/EC.

This won't effect ROS development, and probably will be declared invalid anyway in the United States.
steveh
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Joined: Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:02 pm

OT: FAT patent problem also for hardware!

Post by steveh »

If Microsoft was to enforce it's FAT patent, major problems would arise not just for reactos and linux, but also for number of hardware manufacturers: usb memories, mp3 players, cameras, external harddisks are often preformatted with FAT. In case the patent is enforced, then all these devices may no longer be preformatted FAT by the manufacturer...

Of course these devices could be formatted in some other format, but Microsoft also has the NTFS patent, and if these devices are connected to a windows computer, other formats would require the user first to install an ext2 driver for windows... or preformat the usb device before first use themselves on their windows computer. But windows computers encounter problems even to identify an usb device that has only partitions in a linux format. (my ext3 formatted usb stick is "invisible" for windows)
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