From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751681AbWAKRUm (ORCPT ); Wed, 11 Jan 2006 12:20:42 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751543AbWAKRUm (ORCPT ); Wed, 11 Jan 2006 12:20:42 -0500 Received: from smtp.bulldogdsl.com ([212.158.248.8]:60431 "EHLO mcr-smtp-002.bulldogdsl.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751533AbWAKRUl (ORCPT ); Wed, 11 Jan 2006 12:20:41 -0500 X-Spam-Abuse: Please report all spam/abuse matters to abuse@bulldogdsl.com From: Alistair John Strachan To: Rik van Riel Subject: Re: FAT and Microsoft patent? Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:20:44 +0000 User-Agent: KMail/1.9 Cc: Christopher Friesen , Roger Heflin , "'linux-os (Dick Johnson)'" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <43C528FC.1060408@nortel.com> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200601111720.44759.s0348365@sms.ed.ac.uk> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wednesday 11 January 2006 17:13, Rik van Riel wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jan 2006, Christopher Friesen wrote: > > The question still holds in modified form...will we need to remove this > > functionality, or is it currently implemented in a way that does not > > infringe on the patent? > > I would not be surprised if the UMSDOS filesystem predated > VFAT by a few years - but this was all quite a while ago, > and I'm not sure the patents cover something that UMSDOS > could have prior art on... I think the patents are on LFN, which is not VFAT, probably a lot younger, and as other people have mentioned on this thread, a lot less of a patent threat. -- Cheers, Alistair. 'No sense being pessimistic, it probably wouldn't work anyway.' Third year Computer Science undergraduate. 1F2 55 South Clerk Street, Edinburgh, UK.