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Microsoft FAT charges - Phil's spin?

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Mike Fried

Mike Fried

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Phil Askey wrote:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0312/03120403microsoftisfat.asp
Member said:
Microsoft will soon be charging manufacturers of flash memory card
devices and those which use them $0.25 per unit or up to $250,000 to use
the FAT filesystem. For those who are unaware the FAT file system was
developed by Microsoft back in 1976 and has become the standard file
system for all digital still cameras. Microsoft owns patents to the FAT
File System but for many years hasn't even hinted that it may one day
decide to charge for it. These new licenses appear to come into effect
immediately and specifically make mention of 'compact flash memory
cards' and 'portable digital still cameras'. What a great way for
Microsoft to cash in on the most popular consumer products (as if they
don't make enough money already).
Click to expand...
Now, let's examine one portion of the PR:

"In order to ensure interoperability between the licensed media and devices and Microsoft® Windows®-based personal computers and to improve consumer experience, the license requires that licensees' FAT file system implementations in the licensed media and devices be fully compliant with certain required portions of the Microsoft FAT file system specification. To help licensees implement the FAT file system, Microsoft will also provide certain reference source code and test specifications as part of the licensing package in both licenses."

If you look at the press release (replicated by Phil right under his assumptions/comments in the URL above), Microsoft is offering source code and technical specifications and licences to use patents to ensure that people are compatible, limited to $250,000 per licensee (and their prices are negotiable). I am in the Canon camp (I own 3 Canon cameras -- 2 are SLR, 2 are Digital) so I'm going to pick on Canon for my examples:

Canon could ensure that they were compatible on all of their products even using the same code that MS uses to read/write for a flat fee of $250,000. In US software engineer salaries + overhead (obviously these things differ vastly by region from, say India, to Japan), that's about 2-3 man-years of engineering work of writing software. It doesn't say anywhere that any manufacturers have to sign on, and it doesn't mention any form of "Microsoft sponsored branding" for licensees (which is odd for such a program -- I would have expected some mention of a "MS Certified FAT Compatible" logo program to go along with a technology license, but maybe that's an additional charge for testing/certification). Microsoft hasn't indicated that they will be suing people for implementing FAT their own way (these patents only cover certain extensions, not the original version as used in several existing products), but the press release does imply that MS is interested in making future extensions, has other patents pending, and those will be covered by this license.

This isn't one of those cases of 'MS bullies manufacturers into accepting some random tax' as some narrow minded people seem to think, but rather, it is a case of 'Microsoft setting a price for specs, source code to implement such specs, and licenses for related patents to such specs'.

My guess is that this came about due to the anti-trust suit remedies made by Judge Kotar-Kotelly. Microsoft, until this anti-trust suit normally would hold tight to its technologies and wouldn't give them away for a quarter per usage witha cap at $250,000 for a million usages. If it becomes news that MS sues some Memory Manufaturer or Camera Manufacturer over NOT taking advantage of this, I'll eat my words and publicly apologise to Phil, but this Press Release does not deserve the negative spin. FAT is a long-held standard, and Microsoft is selling code and licensing patents. I'm more interested in if/when they do this with NTFS than I am to hear rants by people who read Phil's short paragraph about MS charging camera and memory card manufacturers for technology licenses. Just because Microsoft is fishing for licensees, doesn't mean that it has any takers. The PR doesn't mention any agreements, just an offering.

Considering all the attention Microsoft has been placing on Digital Photography recently, maybe there will be some new FAT advancements that will make it worthwhile for companies to buy into this licensing program. One can only wonder.

Also, it seems that this license might actually be good for new startup tech companies. $.25 per device up to a limit of $250,000 seems cheap for a complete reference implementation and testing utilities. Time to market is key in the computer world.
-Mike
 
He's not the only one caught by this bit of propaganda from Slashdot.org. I would, however, appreciate if he verified the sources before posting the news on such an authoritative site as dpreview.com.
 
Mike Fried said:
Mike Fried said:
Microsoft will soon be charging manufacturers of flash memory card
devices and those which use them $0.25 per unit or up to $250,000 to use
the FAT filesystem. For those who are unaware the FAT file system was
developed by Microsoft back in 1976 and has become the standard file
system for all digital still cameras. Microsoft owns patents to the FAT
File System but for many years hasn't even hinted that it may one day
decide to charge for it. These new licenses appear to come into effect
immediately and specifically make mention of 'compact flash memory
cards' and 'portable digital still cameras'. What a great way for
Microsoft to cash in on the most popular consumer products (as if they
don't make enough money already).
Click to expand...
Now, let's examine one portion of the PR:
"In order to ensure interoperability between the licensed media and
devices and Microsoft® Windows®-based personal computers and to
improve consumer experience, the license requires that licensees'
FAT file system implementations in the licensed media and devices
be fully compliant with certain required portions of the Microsoft
FAT file system specification. To help licensees implement the FAT
file system, Microsoft will also provide certain reference source
code and test specifications as part of the licensing package in
both licenses."

If you look at the press release (replicated by Phil right under
his assumptions/comments in the URL above), Microsoft is offering
source code and technical specifications and licences to use
patents to ensure that people are compatible, limited to $250,000
per licensee (and their prices are negotiable). I am in the Canon
camp (I own 3 Canon cameras -- 2 are SLR, 2 are Digital) so I'm
going to pick on Canon for my examples:

Canon could ensure that they were compatible on all of their
products even using the same code that MS uses to read/write for a
flat fee of $250,000. In US software engineer salaries + overhead
(obviously these things differ vastly by region from, say India, to
Japan), that's about 2-3 man-years of engineering work of writing
software. It doesn't say anywhere that any manufacturers have to
sign on, and it doesn't mention any form of "Microsoft sponsored
branding" for licensees (which is odd for such a program -- I would
have expected some mention of a "MS Certified FAT Compatible" logo
program to go along with a technology license, but maybe that's an
additional charge for testing/certification). Microsoft hasn't
indicated that they will be suing people for implementing FAT their
own way (these patents only cover certain extensions, not the
original version as used in several existing products), but the
press release does imply that MS is interested in making future
extensions, has other patents pending, and those will be covered by
this license.

This isn't one of those cases of 'MS bullies manufacturers into
accepting some random tax' as some narrow minded people seem to
think, but rather, it is a case of 'Microsoft setting a price for
specs, source code to implement such specs, and licenses for
related patents to such specs'.

My guess is that this came about due to the anti-trust suit
remedies made by Judge Kotar-Kotelly. Microsoft, until this
anti-trust suit normally would hold tight to its technologies and
wouldn't give them away for a quarter per usage witha cap at
$250,000 for a million usages. If it becomes news that MS sues some
Memory Manufaturer or Camera Manufacturer over NOT taking advantage
of this, I'll eat my words and publicly apologise to Phil, but this
Press Release does not deserve the negative spin. FAT is a
long-held standard, and Microsoft is selling code and licensing
patents. I'm more interested in if/when they do this with NTFS than
I am to hear rants by people who read Phil's short paragraph about
MS charging camera and memory card manufacturers for technology
licenses. Just because Microsoft is fishing for licensees, doesn't
mean that it has any takers. The PR doesn't mention any agreements,
just an offering.

Considering all the attention Microsoft has been placing on Digital
Photography recently, maybe there will be some new FAT advancements
that will make it worthwhile for companies to buy into this
licensing program. One can only wonder.

Also, it seems that this license might actually be good for new
startup tech companies. $.25 per device up to a limit of $250,000
seems cheap for a complete reference implementation and testing
utilities. Time to market is key in the computer world.
-Mike
Click to expand...
The thing is, Microsoft is not very interested in making any progress with FAT. It's an open and shut case. They won't be making any worthwile update to the system.

FAT16 is 16 times slower than FAT12, and FAT32 is 65536 times slower than FAT16. It's a fact of life. Of course not read/write speed, but access speed. Access speed is an 'irrelevant' fraction of read/write speed, so this goes unnoticed.

Of course, hardware speed has also increased since 1976, so that seems irrelevant. But it's not.

FAT16:

Imagine a building. Make it have 65536 storeys. Put an elevator there which stops on every storey to take people off (write), or on (read). Let's imagine each story holds 16 million people. Elevator stores an infinite number of people and has a constant speed regardless of the number of people on it. It has to stop on each floor and let those 16 million people off or on (not both!).
Let's say it takes 3 second for each person to (un)board.

And it takes the elevator 1 second to: close the doors, move to the next storey, and open the doors.
To "write" 65 million people (65,536,000), it would take:
(1,000x3)+(65,536x1,000)=65,539,000 seconds.

FAT32:
Imagine a building with 4 billion storeys... Each storey holds 256 people.

Now, let's assume the same capabilities of both people and the elevator. Whilst the time for all those people to do the (un)boarding has NOT changed, the number of times the elevator has to travel has increased 65,536 times!
To "write those 65 million people, it would take:
(65,536,000x3)+(256x256,000)=262144000

As you can see, the difference in time is: 262,144,000-65,539,000=196,605,000 seconds, out of favour for FAT32.

This is of course way out of means of calculation (much simplified), since HDD heads read 512 bytes on each access, so that means they can read the same number of FAT units, and access data with the same speed on both systems.

But still, even though the above calculations are correct, FAT32 is faster only in some regards.

What's the secret? Microsoft has advertised that speeds will increase for FAT32 drives. They did, but only for the smallest files. The larger ones suffered from access lag. Of course, some of that went unnoticed because of two things:

1. people had FAT32 preinstalled on their machines, so they didn't have any way to compare it to previous systems.

2. HDDs above 2 GB had electronics fast enough to supress the lag as compared to earlier, smaller ones.

Now, imagine FAT64. It's not needed, of course, but if Microsoft went on and "developed" FAT32, you would end up with a 18,446,744,073,709,551,616, that is "18 HEXILLION storey building," or rather allocation units. That means four BILLION times slower access than FAT32.

This would be suicide to Microsoft, they know it, and won't do that, of course.

So, they will try to enforce NTFS or any other filesystem they think of.

Someone remarked ext3 (jfs3) is a waste of space on memory cards. I ask you: is it a waste of space on 2 GB harddrives? Is it a waste of space on 10GB harddrives? Of course not, and portable storage space will increase to such amounts very soon, so I'd like to ask:

What would you prefer? 65 thousand slower access speeds for cards larger than 2 GB, or lose 50 MB of space and keep current access speeds, or even increase them?
 
It seems apparent that Microsoft has cleverly set a ceiling of $250,000 on royalties because this makes it marginally cheaper to pay instead of trying to take them to court to break their patent. A patent on the FAT design would probably be unenforceable if challenged, since it is a minor non-novel variation of previous designs used in other operating systems. And contrary to the news story, it wasn't created by Microsoft (how quickly children forget the recent past!). It was hacked together by a lowly hardware engineer at Seattle Computer Products. Bill Gates bought it from Seattle Computer Products in 1981.
 
...about elevator and people speed.

The relation I put here presupposed that access speed is much slower than read/write speed. As well as forgetting to mention one more thing.

Not two, but three factors have to be taken into account:
1. read/write speed ((un)boarding speed)
2. access speed (close doors/move floor/open door)

3. call to FAT for the next allocation unit (telephone down to move to floor no.#, avoiding unnecessary door opening on full floors).

In relation, I feel it's more like:
(un)boarding speed per one person: 1 second
closing doors: 1/100th of a second
moving between floors: 1/50th of a second
opening doors: 1/100th of a second.
Altogether: 1/25th of a second

Call downstairs and pressing the button: depends on number of allocation units: between 1/100th and 1/25th of a second.

Of course, those values are still not in a very good relation to each other, but definitely much better than what I've stated before.
 
Sounds to me like they're trying to comply with that court order which forces them to open up the specs for licensing, while also making a quick buck in the process (those lawyers are expensive, you know).

By licensing documentation, sample code and patents to this technology, Microsoft makes it easier for other companies to take advantage of enhanced file transfer compatibility and build effective, compatible implementations of the FAT file system in their offerings.

"Lexar Media is glad to support Microsoft's goal of standardizing the industry around the FAT file system, which will further ensure interoperability of our memory cards, cameras and other consumer devices," said Jim Gustke, general manager of marketing of Lexar Media. "We believe that such standardization will prompt more consumers to buy Flash storage products, as well as accelerate the innovation of new technologies to fuel the demand for memory cards with capacities of 4 GB and higher."
 
I bet you wouldn't use the original version that was created by Seattle Computer Products to save your life. Also, if you RTFA, the licensing deal is more about FAT32 than anything else (> 2GB). And FAT32 I'm sure has nothing to do with the original version of FAT, except maybe for backward compatibility.
 
If I remember my PC history properly, microsoft bought an O/s for the intel 8086 that was essentially a 16bit cp/m derivative written by Tim Patterson.

I don't know whether the FAT was borrowed from cp/m as well...
Doug Ames said:
It seems apparent that Microsoft has cleverly set a ceiling of
$250,000 on royalties because this makes it marginally cheaper to
pay instead of trying to take them to court to break their patent.
A patent on the FAT design would probably be unenforceable if
challenged, since it is a minor non-novel variation of previous
designs used in other operating systems. And contrary to the news
story, it wasn't created by Microsoft (how quickly children forget
the recent past!). It was hacked together by a lowly hardware
engineer at Seattle Computer Products. Bill Gates bought it from
Seattle Computer Products in 1981.
Click to expand...
 
DMillier said:
If I remember my PC history properly, microsoft bought an O/s for
the intel 8086 that was essentially a 16bit cp/m derivative written
by Tim Patterson.

I don't know whether the FAT was borrowed from cp/m as well...
Click to expand...
I think the whole thing began as a "reverse engineering" job of Gary Kildall's CPM (Digital Research) by Gates and Allen. It's amazing how history becomes "revisionist" - sort of like Apple's rip off of Xerox's GUI :-)

Lin
--
http://208.56.82.71
 
Phil Askey said:
photogeek said:
He's not the only one caught by this bit of propaganda from
Slashdot.org. I would, however, appreciate if he verified the
sources before posting the news on such an authoritative site as
dpreview.com.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
you've replied to Phil's comment so you've clearly you read it - so now how about another one acknowledging that your assertion about verifying sources was wide of the mark?

c'mon big man - if you can dish it out so readily, then how about being willing to own up when you get it wrong?

Mike
 
WinFS is nothing more than a layer of metadata on top of NTFS. This metadata layer is supposed to understand SQL, too. This is to simplify the management of enormous harddrives we all will be using in 2005 (or whenever the next version of Windows comes out).
 
It's interesting to note there is a $250,000 cap.

Suprised they did not include the other media types....

Bill
Mike Fried said:
Mike Fried said:
Microsoft will soon be charging manufacturers of flash memory card
devices and those which use them $0.25 per unit or up to $250,000 to use
the FAT filesystem. For those who are unaware the FAT file system was
developed by Microsoft back in 1976 and has become the standard file
system for all digital still cameras. Microsoft owns patents to the FAT
File System but for many years hasn't even hinted that it may one day
decide to charge for it. These new licenses appear to come into effect
immediately and specifically make mention of 'compact flash memory
cards' and 'portable digital still cameras'. What a great way for
Microsoft to cash in on the most popular consumer products (as if they
don't make enough money already).
Click to expand...
Now, let's examine one portion of the PR:
"In order to ensure interoperability between the licensed media and
devices and Microsoft® Windows®-based personal computers and to
improve consumer experience, the license requires that licensees'
FAT file system implementations in the licensed media and devices
be fully compliant with certain required portions of the Microsoft
FAT file system specification. To help licensees implement the FAT
file system, Microsoft will also provide certain reference source
code and test specifications as part of the licensing package in
both licenses."

If you look at the press release (replicated by Phil right under
his assumptions/comments in the URL above), Microsoft is offering
source code and technical specifications and licences to use
patents to ensure that people are compatible, limited to $250,000
per licensee (and their prices are negotiable). I am in the Canon
camp (I own 3 Canon cameras -- 2 are SLR, 2 are Digital) so I'm
going to pick on Canon for my examples:

Canon could ensure that they were compatible on all of their
products even using the same code that MS uses to read/write for a
flat fee of $250,000. In US software engineer salaries + overhead
(obviously these things differ vastly by region from, say India, to
Japan), that's about 2-3 man-years of engineering work of writing
software. It doesn't say anywhere that any manufacturers have to
sign on, and it doesn't mention any form of "Microsoft sponsored
branding" for licensees (which is odd for such a program -- I would
have expected some mention of a "MS Certified FAT Compatible" logo
program to go along with a technology license, but maybe that's an
additional charge for testing/certification). Microsoft hasn't
indicated that they will be suing people for implementing FAT their
own way (these patents only cover certain extensions, not the
original version as used in several existing products), but the
press release does imply that MS is interested in making future
extensions, has other patents pending, and those will be covered by
this license.

This isn't one of those cases of 'MS bullies manufacturers into
accepting some random tax' as some narrow minded people seem to
think, but rather, it is a case of 'Microsoft setting a price for
specs, source code to implement such specs, and licenses for
related patents to such specs'.

My guess is that this came about due to the anti-trust suit
remedies made by Judge Kotar-Kotelly. Microsoft, until this
anti-trust suit normally would hold tight to its technologies and
wouldn't give them away for a quarter per usage witha cap at
$250,000 for a million usages. If it becomes news that MS sues some
Memory Manufaturer or Camera Manufacturer over NOT taking advantage
of this, I'll eat my words and publicly apologise to Phil, but this
Press Release does not deserve the negative spin. FAT is a
long-held standard, and Microsoft is selling code and licensing
patents. I'm more interested in if/when they do this with NTFS than
I am to hear rants by people who read Phil's short paragraph about
MS charging camera and memory card manufacturers for technology
licenses. Just because Microsoft is fishing for licensees, doesn't
mean that it has any takers. The PR doesn't mention any agreements,
just an offering.

Considering all the attention Microsoft has been placing on Digital
Photography recently, maybe there will be some new FAT advancements
that will make it worthwhile for companies to buy into this
licensing program. One can only wonder.

Also, it seems that this license might actually be good for new
startup tech companies. $.25 per device up to a limit of $250,000
seems cheap for a complete reference implementation and testing
utilities. Time to market is key in the computer world.
-Mike
Click to expand...
--
Bill
http://www.williamkaroly.com
 
The bits about providing source code, compatibility, interoperability, improving consumer experience, ad nauseum, are a good example of "spin." There aren't any widespread problems with FAT on any of those counts.

At http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp , quote:

Microsoft's FAT file system license offers limited rights to issued and pending Microsoft patents on FAT file system technology, as well as rights to implement the Microsoft FAT file system specification.

End quote.

Notice it says "rights to implement." This implies that without the license, you lack those rights.

-RalphH-
 
A good journalist anticipates and answers obvious questions.

I thought patents expire in 17 years. 1976 is 27 years ago. Why have not Microsoft's FAT patents expired? When will they expire?
Mike Fried said:
Mike Fried said:
Microsoft will soon be charging manufacturers of flash memory card
devices and those which use them $0.25 per unit or up to $250,000 to use
the FAT filesystem. For those who are unaware the FAT file system was
developed by Microsoft back in 1976 and has become the standard file
system for all digital still cameras. Microsoft owns patents to the FAT
File System but for many years hasn't even hinted that it may one day
decide to charge for it. These new licenses appear to come into effect
immediately and specifically make mention of 'compact flash memory
cards' and 'portable digital still cameras'. What a great way for
Microsoft to cash in on the most popular consumer products (as if they
don't make enough money already).
Click to expand...
Now, let's examine one portion of the PR:
"In order to ensure interoperability between the licensed media and
devices and Microsoft® Windows®-based personal computers and to
improve consumer experience, the license requires that licensees'
FAT file system implementations in the licensed media and devices
be fully compliant with certain required portions of the Microsoft
FAT file system specification. To help licensees implement the FAT
file system, Microsoft will also provide certain reference source
code and test specifications as part of the licensing package in
both licenses."

If you look at the press release (replicated by Phil right under
his assumptions/comments in the URL above), Microsoft is offering
source code and technical specifications and licences to use
patents to ensure that people are compatible, limited to $250,000
per licensee (and their prices are negotiable). I am in the Canon
camp (I own 3 Canon cameras -- 2 are SLR, 2 are Digital) so I'm
going to pick on Canon for my examples:

Canon could ensure that they were compatible on all of their
products even using the same code that MS uses to read/write for a
flat fee of $250,000. In US software engineer salaries + overhead
(obviously these things differ vastly by region from, say India, to
Japan), that's about 2-3 man-years of engineering work of writing
software. It doesn't say anywhere that any manufacturers have to
sign on, and it doesn't mention any form of "Microsoft sponsored
branding" for licensees (which is odd for such a program -- I would
have expected some mention of a "MS Certified FAT Compatible" logo
program to go along with a technology license, but maybe that's an
additional charge for testing/certification). Microsoft hasn't
indicated that they will be suing people for implementing FAT their
own way (these patents only cover certain extensions, not the
original version as used in several existing products), but the
press release does imply that MS is interested in making future
extensions, has other patents pending, and those will be covered by
this license.

This isn't one of those cases of 'MS bullies manufacturers into
accepting some random tax' as some narrow minded people seem to
think, but rather, it is a case of 'Microsoft setting a price for
specs, source code to implement such specs, and licenses for
related patents to such specs'.

My guess is that this came about due to the anti-trust suit
remedies made by Judge Kotar-Kotelly. Microsoft, until this
anti-trust suit normally would hold tight to its technologies and
wouldn't give them away for a quarter per usage witha cap at
$250,000 for a million usages. If it becomes news that MS sues some
Memory Manufaturer or Camera Manufacturer over NOT taking advantage
of this, I'll eat my words and publicly apologise to Phil, but this
Press Release does not deserve the negative spin. FAT is a
long-held standard, and Microsoft is selling code and licensing
patents. I'm more interested in if/when they do this with NTFS than
I am to hear rants by people who read Phil's short paragraph about
MS charging camera and memory card manufacturers for technology
licenses. Just because Microsoft is fishing for licensees, doesn't
mean that it has any takers. The PR doesn't mention any agreements,
just an offering.

Considering all the attention Microsoft has been placing on Digital
Photography recently, maybe there will be some new FAT advancements
that will make it worthwhile for companies to buy into this
licensing program. One can only wonder.

Also, it seems that this license might actually be good for new
startup tech companies. $.25 per device up to a limit of $250,000
seems cheap for a complete reference implementation and testing
utilities. Time to market is key in the computer world.
-Mike
Click to expand...
--
Author of SAR Image Processor
http://www.general-cathexis.com
 
The patents deal with long filenames, which cover the entire FAT patent as well. In other words, you cannot implement FAT filesystem without adding the possibility to write long filenames, so using FAT assumes you might want to write long filenames (even if you didn't), so this is covered by the patent. Oh, the patent is from the early nineties, I believe.
aruzinsky said:
I thought patents expire in 17 years. 1976 is 27 years ago. Why
have not Microsoft's FAT patents expired? When will they expire?
Mike Fried said:
aruzinsky said:
Microsoft will soon be charging manufacturers of flash memory card
devices and those which use them $0.25 per unit or up to $250,000 to use
the FAT filesystem. For those who are unaware the FAT file system was
developed by Microsoft back in 1976 and has become the standard file
system for all digital still cameras. Microsoft owns patents to the FAT
File System but for many years hasn't even hinted that it may one day
decide to charge for it. These new licenses appear to come into effect
immediately and specifically make mention of 'compact flash memory
cards' and 'portable digital still cameras'. What a great way for
Microsoft to cash in on the most popular consumer products (as if they
don't make enough money already).
Click to expand...
Now, let's examine one portion of the PR:
"In order to ensure interoperability between the licensed media and
devices and Microsoft® Windows®-based personal computers and to
improve consumer experience, the license requires that licensees'
FAT file system implementations in the licensed media and devices
be fully compliant with certain required portions of the Microsoft
FAT file system specification. To help licensees implement the FAT
file system, Microsoft will also provide certain reference source
code and test specifications as part of the licensing package in
both licenses."

If you look at the press release (replicated by Phil right under
his assumptions/comments in the URL above), Microsoft is offering
source code and technical specifications and licences to use
patents to ensure that people are compatible, limited to $250,000
per licensee (and their prices are negotiable). I am in the Canon
camp (I own 3 Canon cameras -- 2 are SLR, 2 are Digital) so I'm
going to pick on Canon for my examples:

Canon could ensure that they were compatible on all of their
products even using the same code that MS uses to read/write for a
flat fee of $250,000. In US software engineer salaries + overhead
(obviously these things differ vastly by region from, say India, to
Japan), that's about 2-3 man-years of engineering work of writing
software. It doesn't say anywhere that any manufacturers have to
sign on, and it doesn't mention any form of "Microsoft sponsored
branding" for licensees (which is odd for such a program -- I would
have expected some mention of a "MS Certified FAT Compatible" logo
program to go along with a technology license, but maybe that's an
additional charge for testing/certification). Microsoft hasn't
indicated that they will be suing people for implementing FAT their
own way (these patents only cover certain extensions, not the
original version as used in several existing products), but the
press release does imply that MS is interested in making future
extensions, has other patents pending, and those will be covered by
this license.

This isn't one of those cases of 'MS bullies manufacturers into
accepting some random tax' as some narrow minded people seem to
think, but rather, it is a case of 'Microsoft setting a price for
specs, source code to implement such specs, and licenses for
related patents to such specs'.

My guess is that this came about due to the anti-trust suit
remedies made by Judge Kotar-Kotelly. Microsoft, until this
anti-trust suit normally would hold tight to its technologies and
wouldn't give them away for a quarter per usage witha cap at
$250,000 for a million usages. If it becomes news that MS sues some
Memory Manufaturer or Camera Manufacturer over NOT taking advantage
of this, I'll eat my words and publicly apologise to Phil, but this
Press Release does not deserve the negative spin. FAT is a
long-held standard, and Microsoft is selling code and licensing
patents. I'm more interested in if/when they do this with NTFS than
I am to hear rants by people who read Phil's short paragraph about
MS charging camera and memory card manufacturers for technology
licenses. Just because Microsoft is fishing for licensees, doesn't
mean that it has any takers. The PR doesn't mention any agreements,
just an offering.

Considering all the attention Microsoft has been placing on Digital
Photography recently, maybe there will be some new FAT advancements
that will make it worthwhile for companies to buy into this
licensing program. One can only wonder.

Also, it seems that this license might actually be good for new
startup tech companies. $.25 per device up to a limit of $250,000
seems cheap for a complete reference implementation and testing
utilities. Time to market is key in the computer world.
-Mike
Click to expand...
--
Author of SAR Image Processor
http://www.general-cathexis.com
Click to expand...
 
toughluck said:
The patents deal with long filenames, which cover the entire FAT
patent as well. In other words, you cannot implement FAT filesystem
without adding the possibility to write long filenames, ...
Click to expand...
The point of how they did long filenames is that older implementations of FAT without long filenames will still work--they'll just see the short filenames.

I think Microsoft wants to get a lot of companies under license, so they can control how FAT is deployed, more than they want the licensing revenue. If they can get new features in use in most cameras, it becomes harder for the people who want to run the old FAT without these patented changes. Think Linux...

j
 
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