On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, John Macdonald wrote:

That's fine for a dual boot Linux getting access to the licensed MS file system, but if another poster was right about USD memory disks and such devices using FAT, the "damage" is that you used a Linux instead of buying Windows to read the USB device.

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 Linux's implementation of the Minix1 FS because it is lite but it is limited to 64MB iirc, which is already too small for these device. 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.

Does anyone have any details of exactly what is patented and when the patent(s) expire?

Patents expire when Mickey Mouse is no longer profitable, or is that copyrights, I can't remember. Rob -- Robert Brockway B.Sc. email: robert-5LEc/6Zm6xCUd8a0hrldnti2O/JbrIOy at public.gmane.org, zzbrock at uqconnect.net Linux counter project ID #16440 (http://counter.li.org) "The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens" -Baha'u'llah -- 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