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Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register)Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register)Posted Dec 8, 2003 16:33 UTC (Mon) by ccchips (guest, #3222)Parent article: Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) Microsoft is at risk on the security front. If enough people get fed up with security problems in Microsoft products, they might look seriously at alternatives such as Linux. This would badly impact their revenue stream. In the past, I had the impression that Microsoft people weren't all that crazy about software patents, and were operating mainly in a defensive and/or exchange mode. But what would happen if the company started to really sink? I have really cut back on my need to transfer files between Windows and Linux partitions on the same machine, but I'm starting to feel as if it might be a really good idea for GNU and other free-software supporters to get those Windows-side EXT2 and EXT3 file systems working... ...or for IBM to start working out some deals with Microsoft....
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Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) Posted Dec 8, 2003 16:38 UTC (Mon) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] I would rather see a driver developed of Windows that would allow ext2 or some othernon-windows filesystem to be used on such devices. While I am glad IBM has been such a great contributor to Linux, I would not want them to cut some deal with Microsoft.
Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) Posted Dec 8, 2003 16:47 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] It doesn't matter if such driver exists or not. Users of digital cameras expect that they connect the camera to the PC and the contents of the flash card is shown as a drive. They don't have to install any software now. Installing software on Windows is still a barrier for many users, and the manufacturers of digital cameras and other devices don't want to lose those users.Another filesystem supported by Windows is iso9660 (used on CD). NTFS is not supported by Windows 98 and Windows ME. But I'm not sure it will work out-of-box like FAT on non-CD devices, and it's working out-of-box that matters here.
Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) Posted Dec 8, 2003 18:08 UTC (Mon) by yohahn (subscriber, #4107) [Link] Actually, how many of these devices use long filenames. If what I have read elsewhere is correct, all of microsoft's patents have to do with storing both a long filename and a short filename for each file. Why not just create a FAT compatible system which does not do this? In place of each long name (or each short name) put nothing.Not ideal, but would mostly work. (N.B. I have not read the patents and even if I did, I'm not a patent lawyer, so I really have no idea if this would cya or not. It SEEMS to me that it would)
Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) Posted Dec 8, 2003 19:19 UTC (Mon) by pjs (guest, #10927) [Link] The 32 byte FAT directory entries that are used to store the long filename do NOT store critically important information about the file, specifically the starting cluster, size, attribute bits, and modification time. So, it is quite easy to have only short 8.3 filenames, but there really is no option to have long filenames without their 8.3 counterparts.... at least within the scope of FAT, which is implemented in every almost operating system and countless portable devices.
Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) Posted Dec 9, 2003 11:10 UTC (Tue) by amikins (subscriber, #451) [Link] There's already EXT2 drivers out there for various WinOSes, with (optional) write support. It's not exactly robust as of yet, but I've made use of it on a few occasions. Some also can do (read only) access of EXT3. (mostly so that my gaming Win2k partition can access my MP3 collection; Even when I'm doing read-only, I don't like using non-journaling filesystems)Though, I don't think it'd be even remotely trivial to get Windows to /boot/ from an EXT2/EXT3 partition on any version of Windows. Sadly, at this moment I don't have access to my links list for what I've used. Fortunately, someone who wants more info can always use google. =>
Microsoft aiming IBM-scale patent program at Linux? (Register) Posted Dec 9, 2003 23:02 UTC (Tue) by emak (subscriber, #488) [Link] There is a driver for Ext2 & Ext3 :"What is EXT2IFS? EXT2IFS is an Installable File System Driver (IFS) for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 (NT 5.0). The driver can read the Second Extended File System (EXT2) and Third Extended http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/ext2ifs.htm
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