Consider that thousands of products by other companies (who likely did not explicitly license the FAT filesystem either) are deployed with or on FAT file systems.<div><br></div><div>MP3 players by the score, (including Apple's iPODs which label the FAT file system the 'Compatibility Filesystem'), Apple's computers that can format FAT volumes, god only knows how many digital cameras, external USB disks, memory sticks, etc...</div>
<div><br></div><div>Typically, such a suit is only brought when there are damages; given that there was no particular technical advantage gained in choosing the FAT filesystem, and, indeed, a technical advantage might have been obtained in choosing one of the *dozens* of other filesystems out there, I think it would be difficult to demonstrate any real damages to microsoft; whats more, if it were looked into deeply, microsoft could likely be shown to not have excercised due diligence in protecting it's rights under patent law in the broader sense wrt a FAT patent (who else are they bringing suit against over shipping the FAT filesystem unlicensed?).</div>
<div><br></div><div>It just looks excessively predatory to me; the FAT is isnt exactly rocket science. And if they make that much fuss over *the FAT filesystem* it stands to reason that they might come after those using their more valuable assets without license, wouldn't you think?</div>
<div><br></div><div>Cheers</div><div>James</div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Nebadon Izumi <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nebadon2025@gmail.com">nebadon2025@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">personally the only wolf in sheeps clothing i see in this case is TomTom for not aquiring permission to use software, sounds to me like they tried to steal something that wasn't not theirs and sell it without aquiring permission, so if Microsoft is a wolf in sheeps clothing for protecting is own creations, then I guess thats just how things are, personally I dont see anything that microsoft did wrong or is even un-ethical in this situation, quite the opposite, in my eyes, TomTom were the one with questionable ethics, you cant just steal from microsoft because everyone hates them and they are a huge entity, if we start using these kind of tactics successfully againts large heartless corporations where does it end? the answer is it wouldnt if microsoft lost this case it would be open game on all protected code, and while i love and am a huge promoter of open source, I am a bigger fan of protecting the laws of the land, and as much as everyone would love to see microsoft burn, in this case the law was on their side and thats just the facts, if you are to survive in the open source world you have to thick skin and expect the companies that your "Open" software is competing with their Retail software that keeps their employees paid to be quite defensive when you intrude on their creations.<div>
<div></div><div class="h5"><br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 7:51 AM, James Stallings II <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:james.stallings@gmail.com" target="_blank">james.stallings@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
Nope :) not saying that at all; just saying beware of wolves dressed like sheep.<div><br></div><div><div><div></div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 9:48 AM, Nebadon Izumi <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:nebadon2025@gmail.com" target="_blank">nebadon2025@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">are you trying to say that C# is not a wise choice because TomTom broke copyright and patent laws and Microsoft called them out on it? and why on earth would a company using Linux Kernel select a copy written Microsoft creation for their choice of file system when there are tons of free alternatives? personally i think TomTom is 100% at fault for thier own choices, and this really has nothing to do with C# or this project at all, seems more likely to me this is just an attempt to start a flame war over microsoft since this has absolutly nothing to do with technological decisions.<br>
<br>Nebadon<div><div></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 7:25 AM, Eugen Leitl <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:eugen@leitl.org" target="_blank">eugen@leitl.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
What was the original reason for the decision to pick .Net/C#/Mono?<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090401152339514" target="_blank">http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090401152339514</a><br>
<br>
--<br>
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