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| RIM to pay Microsoft protection money for exFAT patents |
| By Thom Holwerda on 2012-09-18 21:45:37 |
| Microsoft and RIM have announced that RIM has licensed Redmond's exFAT patents. The press release contains a ridiculous amount of hyperbole nonsense, and if you translate it into regular people speak, it basically comes down to RIM paying Microsoft protection money for stupid nonsensical software patents. Ridiculous articles like like this make it seem as if we're talking about patents on major technological breakthroughs, but don't be fooled: this is because for some inexplicable reason, we're using crappy FAT for SD cards. |
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| Metadata |
| By pgquiles on 2012-09-18 22:24:54 |
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The reason we are using FAT for SD cards is FAT consumes little space in metadata and is supported by all the major operating systems (Windows and Mac). Don't forget most people (and OEMs) only moved from FAT32 (which is essentially FAT, only consuming a few more blocks for long names) to NTFS when hard disks became larger than 32 GB. I expected a similar move for SD cards but exFAT, which is lighter than NTFS, may make that different. Problem is the exFAT driver on Linux is very very slow (and affected by patents), unless you purchase the commercial implementation by Tuxera. Edited 2012-09-18 22:25 UTC |
 - Score: 5 |
| RE: Metadata |
| By _txf_ on 2012-09-18 22:38:36 |
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> Problem is the exFAT driver on Linux is very very slow (and affected by patents), unless you purchase the commercial implementation by Tuxera. Not just exFat. FAT is protected by patents as well, I imagine all Android/Linux makers got nastygrams with fat being some of the infringing patents. ExFAT is basically just regular FAT with support for larger volumes and file sizes plus some minor features cribbed from more modern filesystems. Edited 2012-09-18 22:39 UTC |
| - Score: 2 |
| Where is the EU? |
| By Bill Shooter of Bul on 2012-09-18 22:39:02 |
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I don't understand why the EU hasn't raised a stink about this anticompetitive behaviour. We are using stinky FAT on our sd cards because MS scammed its way into a monopoly and then F'd everyone else over to get its technological underpinnings adopted as necessary standards for interoperability. I'd love for the US DOJ to get involved again as well, but that's kind of like waiting for Godot. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE: Metadata |
| By PieterGen on 2012-09-18 22:42:06 |
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Most SD-cards never get exchanged between devices. So, why doesn't RIM simply choose a good an affordable (read: free) file system? ext3, etx4, reiser, jfs.... Why choose exFAT, which is a)worse and b)more expensive? I mean, Microsoft isn't exactly known for state of the art filesystems, or did I miss something? |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Where is the EU? |
| By _txf_ on 2012-09-18 22:42:54 |
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> We are using stinky FAT on our sd cards because MS scammed its way into a monopoly and then F'd everyone else over to get its technological underpinnings adopted as necessary standards for interoperability. I seem to remember that Rambus got its ass handed to it for that very same behaviour. They submitted tech to JEDEC as a standard, which everybody then implemented. Rambus subsequently sued everybody, initally won, but then got slapped for anticompetitive behaviour. Edited 2012-09-18 22:43 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[2]: Metadata |
| By pgquiles on 2012-09-18 22:48:11 |
|
Because many people do extract their SD card from their camera or mobile phone and insert it into their laptops. Try to do that with ext3 and you've got yourself into three problems: - Not supported out-of-the box on Mac and Windows - Even after installing a driver, the support is not that good. Unless you go for a commercial implementation, such as Paragon's, and that means royalties. And if you are going to pay royalties, well, wtf, pay them to Microsoft and get FAT, which does not neeed a driver! - Some people will try the SD card on a computer where the driver is not installed, they will receive the infamous "unknown partition" message and bitch about having lost all their data So essentially going for FAT or anything which is supported out of the box by Windows and works acceptably well is the best business decision. Props if it also works out of the box and reasonably well on Mac. Linux? No need to care about them. |
| - Score: 7 |
| RE[2]: Where is the EU? |
| By pgquiles on 2012-09-18 22:49:34 |
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When did Microsoft submit FAT as a standard for anything to any standardizing group? Yeah, never, so that's the difference between MS and Rambus. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[2]: Metadata |
| By MollyC on 2012-09-18 22:55:51 |
| RIM likely did a cost-benefit analysis and found that paying a (very cheap, BTW) license fee for exFAT was the best option for them. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[3]: Metadata |
| By MollyC on 2012-09-18 23:00:25 |
| You wrote and submitted your post while I was posting my brief response to PieterGen . You said it better than I did. :) |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE[3]: Where is the EU? |
| By saso on 2012-09-18 23:09:02 |
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> When did Microsoft submit FAT as a standard for anything to any standardizing group? Yeah, never, so that's the difference between MS and Rambus. True, the comparison to Rambus is inadequate, however we do see MS abusing their dominant position in the PC market here. In order to allow for interoperability, you need to implement their proprietary filesystem, which is patent encumbered. Not doing so puts you at a significant disadvantage in the market. Not saying that this isn't exactly established practice in the industry though (such as standards being encumbered by FRAND nonsense patents and the like...) |
| - Score: 2 |
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