M$ to license FAT

[Peter L. Peres]

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003, James Knott wrote:

> cbbrowne-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org wrote:
> >>As the title says. Impact on Linux ?
> >
> >
> > If the claims are true, that there are "live" patents still in place on
> > FAT, then it is conceivable that there might be patent infringments, or
> > at least places where MSFT could _claim_ that there are.
> >
> > Of course, FAT is pretty much derivative of CP/M filesystems, so it is
> > more than likely that any conceivable patents would have to have been
> > filed in the '80s, and thus would have, at most, 3 more years to run.
>
> The only place I use FAT, is on systems that also run Windows.  So, if
> those partitions are created by Windows and just happen to be accessed
> by Linux, would that be a patent violation?

In theory the code in Linux that allows you to access them is in breach
(because a software patent grants them control on a file format and
any method related to it) but ianal. I think that this has to do with
recent advances in linux that allow r/w access to ntfs.

Peter
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