M$ to license FAT

[Taavi Burns]

On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 02:10:15PM -0500, Tim Writer wrote:
> And Linux already offers file systems that are more appropriate for this type
> of use. JFFS2, for example, includes wear leveling to minimize wear which can
> cause certain types of flash devices to fail much earlier than expected.
> IIRC, FAT stores critical information (the file allocation table and a single
> backup) in a fixed area of the file system.  When it fails due to wear,
> you're toast, even if the majority of the device is in good shape.

Most (all?) of the standard Flash memory devices these days have onboard
controllers which can detect failing sectors in the flash memory, and will
reroute data to spare sectors, much as HDs do these days.

Of course, if the filesystem can help out, all the better. :)

> In fact, many (most?) such products already come with software from the
> manufacturer, even if it's not stricly necessary.

But do you want to encourage this behaviour?  And how many distros
come with JFFS2 drivers?  Is it even part of the standard kernel
source (it doesn't look familar to me; then again, I haven't been
looking for it).  There is still the question of which would cost
more: VFAT licensing (if even required), or the writing and maintenance
of a driver.  We might be happy if they came out with some random
open source Windows driver (that couldn't very well be GPL, now, could
it), but others might get a "bad" feeling about it.

-- 
taa
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