Linux could be in a tough spot

[W1nTry]

This could cause some grief to Open Source:

Microsoft FAT patents valid, Linux quivers

Ruling threatens open source

By INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 11 January 2006, 16:16
THE US Patent and Trademark Office has declared that patents Microsoft holds on file allocation tables (FAT) are valid, opening up the question once more on how Linux will be affected.

The Linux OS uses the FAT file system.

Microsoft had faced opposition from the Public Patent Foundation to rule the patents invalid, but the US Patent Office said that the patent techniques are new and non obvious.

Florian Mueller, a noted campaigner against no software patents, said: "This is now a situation in which Microsoft could cause major problems to Linux vendors and users. Microsoft may not want to do that yet... but it gives Microsoft the strategic option to do so at a time of its choosing."

He continued that the US Patent Office and the European Patent Office continue to grant new patents to Microsoft daily. "Some of them may be equally dangerous to open source as the fat patents."

[TinyGrasshopper]

Well it doesn't use FAT. it supports it. This means a lot though I think. thumb drives use FAT. without FAT support that's gonna blow. I think this might be one of those situations where the rest of the industry will cuss them out if they act on it. Like with Microsoft's patent of apple's ipod interface. I hope.

edit: well after reading the arstechnica commentary (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060111-5959.html) I'm suddenly less than optimistic. I would like to see this force hardware manufacturers really start thinking about using open-source if only to get microsoft off their backs. They're really going after linux these days. Has anyone seen their new NXT site? (http://www.isvnxt.com/)

Moves like this are like the patent stuff. Basically turning us into outlaws because we want data the way we want it. My question is who're they gonna sue?