Prior Art?

Prior Art?

Posted Jan 12, 2006 4:41 UTC (Thu) by patmartini (guest, #35146)
In reply to: Prior Art? by filker0
Parent article: Microsoft's file system patent upheld (News.com)

Hello. I too was in the industry then, actually since the 70's. I
remember Coherent. Prior to that I worked with Digital Research, the CP/M
people, and was involved back then (in the pre-Windows era) with an
extended file system format. In fact, the extended architecture actually
began there (migrating into CP/M 86 [later MS-DOS 1.1]). The vfat system
was an extension to the original FAT (later known as FAT16) system,
introduced by MS with W95. This still used 16 bit addressing, capable of
up to 64 megabytes. W95 Second Edition brought FAT32, a further extension
of the vfat system which actually uses 28 address bits (can reach
gigabytes). The other 4 bits were reserved for the long filename support.
This is actually what is still in use today.

This is the crux of the patent point. Gates and company only do things
with dollar signs, and thus, the big targets for this are the memory and
USB-based manufacturers. Flash memory larger than 64 megabytes obviously
require the 28 bit addressing. The long file name is a non-essential
bonus. The secondary target of any patent infringement litigation from
Microsoft will be the Unix/Linux guys, who incorporate FAT32 addressing
read/write capabilities in their operating systems. This obviously forms
a common bridge (a common directory structure) which Gates would like to
see go away. I wonder if this has something to do with Apple's planned
Unix departure.

I know personally that this is a thorn in the Redmond side - dual boot.
They will attack anyone who treads on their preiminent dominance. There
have alreay been several NTFS lawsuits (mainly concerned with writing)
which were the result of reverse engineering. This is why we do not see
NTFS write capability in Unix/Linux. I know Gates, and he will stop at
nothing to satisfy his 'rule the world' attitude (remember Netscape?).

An aside here, I was really upset with them (MS) over the Netscape thing,
but didn't feel as bad when I heard that AOL bought all Netscape assets
for a cool 4.5 Billion (Andreessen and Clark cashed-in big time)! While
the world suffered at the hands of underhanded and illegal MS business
practices, the Netscape guys reaped a huge payoff, thanks to Gates.

I don't think there will be any secondary winners this time, however, as
a shutdown on a common 28 bit addressing scheme will very seriously
impact the industry. I agree with a former comment here about a new,
unified, open standard, but I don't think you will see this real soon on
a Windows box. It's too bad the rest of the industry is so splintered and
separate - a united effort would put some serious (needed) brakes on
Gates & co.

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