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posted by takyon on Thursday August 29 2019, @03:16AM   Printer-friendly
from the ten-years-too-late dept.

Microsoft today announced that it:

is supporting the addition of Microsoft's exFAT technology to the Linux kernel.

Microsoft has published the exFAT file system specification on its Windows Dev Center site.

While the code remains under copyright, Microsoft also stated that the exFAT code incorporated into the Linux kernel will be available under GPLv2.

We also support the eventual inclusion of a Linux kernel with exFAT support in a future revision of the Open Invention Network's Linux System Definition, where, once accepted, the code will benefit from the defensive patent commitments of OIN's 3040+ members and licensees.

It is noteworthy that there is already a free and open source exFAT driver available for FreeBSD and multiple Linux distributions, but it is not an official part of the Linux kernel due to the patent encumbrance of exFAT.

Also at TechCrunch and VentureBeat.


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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @03:34AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @03:34AM (#887158)

    Linux should add extensions to exFat to make it more usable, like symlink support and xattr.

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  • (Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:42AM (2 children)

    by TheGratefulNet (659) on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:42AM (#887181)

    agreed.

    also, I'd like it to have a parser.

    just so we could call it lexFAT ;)

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    • (Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Thursday August 29 2019, @11:36AM

      by pvanhoof (4638) on Thursday August 29 2019, @11:36AM (#887238) Homepage

      You think we'd also need a yafscc, yet another file system compiler compiler to shave?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:17PM (#887419)

      Don't forget that it needs YAML and Blockchain added.

  • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:35AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:35AM (#887190)

    If you don't need it (like, you don't use windows on any of your systems) there is no real need to use it. Plenty of other good enough filesystems that have those features. Also, MS will probably not back port those features to their own systems, so what's the real use of these features then?

    If MS would open up NTFS... that would be way more interesting than this.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:25PM (3 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:25PM (#887385) Journal

      <no-sarcasm>
      At work I use Windows. But personally, I do not now nor never have owned a Windows PC. Just because I prefer Linux for my personal computing doesn't mean that all my friends also use Linux. Or Mac. I still have to interact with people using other platforms. So ExFAT is sometimes handy because it is like a 'rosetta stone' format. While FAT32 may be much more common, it has severe limitations these daze.
      </no-sarcasm>

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      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:27PM (1 child)

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:27PM (#887426) Journal

        Yes, but...

        This is MS making the offer. I'd be extremely skeptical, and require a pledge not only of patent free access, but of full indemnification against some 3rd party making patent claims. MS has long been known to transfer patents to "3rd parties" with the requirement that MS has full rights to continue using them.

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        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday August 29 2019, @09:25PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 29 2019, @09:25PM (#887500) Journal

          I completely agree. I don't trust Microsoft any further than I can throw Donald Trump.

          I would count my fingers after shaking hands just to be sure I'm not missing any.

          Nonetheless, ignoring patents, I sometimes have found it convenient, from time to time, to use exFAT to move files between myself and some non-Linux user whose system wouldn't know anything about ext4 or whatever.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday August 30 2019, @09:13AM

        by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Friday August 30 2019, @09:13AM (#887688)

        I've had good luck using the UDF file system on my USB drives, Linux and Win both support it on most installs and it can handle large files and long files names without issues.

        --
        "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."