On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 01:02:17PM -0500, Robert Brockway wrote:

Maybe the manufacturers of these devices will change to another filesytem (they can take their pick from many choices available in Linux & BSD) in order to avoid paying the licencing fees. I was initially thinking about

But if they can avoid paying a license fee by promising to not use functionality that they're already not using...

All the manufacturers need to do is supply the filesystem driver when they install the s/w on the MS-Windows. Adding drivers all over the place is part of the MS-Windows culture.

But they'd need to write and maintain that driver...and for what? If they NEED long filenames, then ok. Otherwise I really don't see the point.

Patents expire when Mickey Mouse is no longer profitable, or is that copyrights, I can't remember.

That would be copyright, but the precedent is set for a sufficiently profitable <noun> to have its public domain-ness delayed. -- taa /*eof*/ -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml