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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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @12:55PM (2 children)
erm ... if the filesystem doesnt support "users" and "group" and "privileges" then installing a mutiuser OS with a rooot user on it makes no sense ...
why no "exFAT" like filesystem exists on linux, however, is beyond me.
there's something good about a "bag that can hold anything" and anyone can open, add and remove stuff from it.
super quick mount and umount would be cool for it... and drivers for all OSes :)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Pino P on Thursday August 29 2019, @03:39PM (1 child)
The person in physical possession of a removable flash drive or SD card is assumed to have privileges to the underlying block device and therefore privileges to all files stored on the volume. Thus users and groups make little sense with respect to a file system intended for use on removable media. For one thing, if you use a removable flash drive or SD card on more than one machine, the user ID under which you are logged in on one machine is unlikely to match the user ID under which you are logged in on another. This would lock you out of what are ostensibly your own files.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday August 30 2019, @02:50AM
Thanks. Really informative post. I had never quite put it together in head quite that well.