An Open-Source exFAT Implementation Reaches v1.0

[phoronix]

Phoronix: An Open-Source exFAT Implementation Reaches v1.0

Microsoft's exFAT is a file-system designed for flash drives and is supported on Windows XP and later. The exFAT file-system has been around for a few years, but an open-source version hasn't been quick to come since the Microsoft project is proprietary and encumbered by patents. This weekend, a FUSE-based version of exFAT has reached version 1.0...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTI3OTQ

[newwen]

exFAT is very much like a trojan horse.

Anyone shipping a product with exFAT enabled will face Microsoft's claims for patent royalties.

It's a shame that this filesystem was chosen for removable memory standards. Microsoft, once more, leveraged their market monopoly, and by not properly supporting third party filesystems, they imposed their patented format to collect royalties.

[[Knuckles]]

Indeed, microsoft knew *exactly* what they were doing when they created exfat.

Luckily I haven't seen it in the wild yet (which is a good sign), but having an open-source implementation is always helpful if you really need access to something using exfat.

[uid313]

Is there anyone or anything that actually really uses exFAT?

[frantaylor]

exFAT is very much like a trojan horse.

Anyone shipping a product with exFAT enabled will face Microsoft's claims for patent royalties.

It's a shame that this filesystem was chosen for removable memory standards. Microsoft, once more, leveraged their market monopoly, and by not properly supporting third party filesystems, they imposed their patented format to collect royalties.

ANYONE???

You mean that people who live in countries without software patent laws will face claims?


Yes indeed phoronix is the home of people who claim fluency in computer languages and yet they can't even use simple English words effectively.

"not properly supporting" WOW unless you are assuming some massive unknown shakeup at Microsoft, last I heard they were not in the business of giving out free engineering development. You mean to say that Microsoft is in the wrong here because they are not spending their own money to help their competitors? How horrifying. I guess in your reality Microsoft comes out and helps people to tie their shoes and snap their buttons in the morning.

[frantaylor]

Respect for intellectual property! What a concept!

You can go over to ebay and buy blatantly illegal J-Link JTAG debugger clones. They contain copyrighted software from segger.com and yet the US allows them to be imported and sold. The manufacturer brags openly on their ebay page that you can just download the drivers from segger.com and use them with the illegal product.

Yes indeed it is NOT an automatic thing to get sued and shut down if you are violating copyright or patents. You can dream your fantasy dream about law enforcement but in reality there are billions of people out there on this planet who give not a whack about "intellectual property rights" and they will just use your product anyway.

Go and and tell us all how Microsoft is going to sue each and every one of the hundreds and hundreds of Chinese phone manufacturers who are currently shipping their phones with a Chinese android clone. GOOD FUCKING LUCK getting these people to pay royalties.

Go ahead and brag some more about fake American superiority and how the US rules the world and Microsoft can sue anyone. Pure fantasy.

[Redi44]

Still it looks like the best format if you want to move data between OS X, Win and Linux....

[Redshirt001]

Is there anyone or anything that actually really uses exFAT?

Flash drives, memory cards, all kinds of mobile storage devices that need generic filesystem support. They all tend to use exfat or vfat or whatever you want to call it.

[TheBlackCat]

Flash drives, memory cards, all kinds of mobile storage devices that need generic filesystem support. They all tend to use exfat or vfat or whatever you want to call it.

exfat and vfat are pretty much completely unrelated besides the name and the fact they were both developed by microsoft. The memory cards up to 32gb are required to use vfat, but above that (64gb+) they, and devices that read them, are only required to support exfat (they can have vfat, but there is no guarantee that devices will support it).

[newwen]

ANYONE???

You mean that people who live in countries without software patent laws will face claims?


Yes indeed phoronix is the home of people who claim fluency in computer languages and yet they can't even use simple English words effectively.

"not properly supporting" WOW unless you are assuming some massive unknown shakeup at Microsoft, last I heard they were not in the business of giving out free engineering development. You mean to say that Microsoft is in the wrong here because they are not spending their own money to help their competitors? How horrifying. I guess in your reality Microsoft comes out and helps people to tie their shoes and snap their buttons in the morning.

What I meant with "not properly supporting" is that it is not easy to plug a third party filesystem and get it properly integrated in Windows. Sorry for my english.

The consumer electronics industry has been really stupid letting Microsoft get away with their strategy, locking themselves into non royalty free proprietary technology. But it is no surprise, when they even managed to get their OOXML aproved by the ISO body through corruption and bribery.