Microsoft Patents

[janequorzar]

"Here is a question for SolAsm though, how are they getting around the EXE patents ?  or are there any..  is FAT / FAT32 the only patents MS has when it comes to OS dev ?"

I moved this question here since this topic was in the wrong place.
( http://www.masm32.com/board/index.php?topic=14796.0 ) In case you need reference as to where this was asked...

Please read this.. its about lawsuits on software.

http://www.finnegan.com/resources/articles/articlesdetail.aspx?news=a8316063-f731-4971-a651-0481d7954ac2

I been reading this all over.. This kind of thing that MS is suing or being sued. Now I teach classes how to program and how to make OSs in general. But it has been making me convinced that OS making is not as easy as it was once back in the day ONLY because MS has control of ALL software patents from the appearance of it. So here is the problem I have, HOW do we know what MS has in patents ?  is there a way to find out and NOT get sued by them ?

UPDATE : I meant to include this link as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent

[ecube]

they file like hundreds of patents a week I think, lot of large companies do that unfortunately, which is partly why everyone says big corps run the world. Techniqually they don't need to produce any goods anymore just wait till someone else does and sue the pants off em :\

[ecube]

"Patent Office Admits Truth — Things Are a Disaster"

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/11/054212/Patent-Office-Admits-Truth-mdash-Things-Are-a-Disaster

[Twister]

Damn. If only Einstein was working the patent office. He would of made things right. :'(

[bieber]

I don't know where you're getting your info, but every modern GNU/Linux distro I've used lately has both FAT32 and NTFS support, although typically you use other filesystems (ext3, ext4, and some others) with Linux based systems, FAT32 and NTFS are just there for reading from volumes created by other operating systems.  As far as Microsoft's patents go, if you're just teaching classes or building a hobby OS, you can safely ignore them.  If you want to start a business that has anything to do with producing software, well, I'd say you should just move to one of the more sane countries that don't recognize software patents first, or else you never know when a patent troll will come along and just destroy everything you've built.  As far as the Linux kernel goes, there's no doubt that it infringes a lot of Microsoft's patents, but I doubt Microsoft will ever take the PR risk of actually acting on them.  After all, if they showed the public too clearly just how broken the system is, they might start demanding that it be changed...

[bieber]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

If you look at this link that I quoted above, you will see where it backs what I said up. It even has a paragraph about Linux using FAT32 and that they "Disabled" it by default from the Linux distros do to the MS patents. Scroll down where it says "FAT licensing".

It says that TomTom GPS products have removed FAT32 functionality, not the upstream Linux kernel.  Regardless of what the Wikipedia article says, I routinely mount FAT32 drives on Fedora and Ubuntu systems, and I've certainly never had to do anything special to activate it ;)

[bieber]

No, but it's no different for any of the commercial distros.  Whether you download Ubuntu or pay for Redhat, you'll still have no troubles opening FAT32 volumes.