Re: Procedure questions - new filesystem driver..

From: Matthew Wilcox
Date: Tue Jul 09 2019 - 07:21:52 EST


On Tue, Jul 09, 2019 at 12:50:20AM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> How have you dealt with the patent claims which Microsoft has
> asserted[1] on the exFAT file system design?
>
> [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/mtl/exfat-licensing.aspx
>
> I am not making any claims about the validity of Microsoft's patent
> assertions on exFAT, one way or another. But it might be a good idea
> for some laywers from the Linux Foundation to render some legal advice
> to their employees (namely Greg K-H and Linus Torvalds) regarding the
> advisability of taking exFAT into the official Linux tree.
>
> Personally, if Microsoft is going to be unfriendly about not wanting
> others to use their file system technology by making patent claims,
> why should we reward them by making their file system better by
> improvings its interoperability? (My personal opinion only.)

How does
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-entire-patent-portfolio/
change your personal opinion?