On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 11:34:48AM -0500, 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.

According to a couple of articles at the Register, it is speciufially at this sort of device that MS is initially directing its force; but the eventual aim is to use patents to provide MS with a revenue stream now that it's monopoly position has reached its limit to provide continue exponential growth. They claim that this is the first stage in an attack on free sofware. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34348.html http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/34391.html

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

They don't state anything about patent details in the Register articles, but they refer to the MS web page that describes the FAT licensing of Intellectual Property, which refers to 4 existing patents: * U.S. Patent #5,579,517 * U.S. Patent #5,745,902 * U.S. Patent #5,758,352 * U.S. Patent #6,286,013 and to another patent covering additional innovations where the patent has not yet been granted. The lowest numbered one was files Apr/1995 and granted Nov/1996, so the patents themselves are in no danger of expiring for a number of years (but I suspect that the patented concepts are significantly older and should be in danger of passing the expiry limit for when they were first available). A French article gives some details on their meanings: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://blog.saint-elie.com/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dpatent%2B%2B5579517%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG # U.S. Obvious #5,579,517 Long Common name space for and shorts filenames # U.S. Obvious #5,745,902 Method and system for accessing has file using file names having different file name formats # U.S. Obvious #5,758,352 Long Common name space for and shorts filenames # U.S. Obvious #6,286,013 Method and system for providing has common name space for long and shorts spins names in year operating system -- 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