This week at LWN: VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on Jul 11, 2009 7:43 AM EDT
LWN.net; By Jonathan Corbet
Mail this story
Print this story

Back in May, the proposed "no long file names" patch got a hostile reception on the linux-kernel mailing list. This patch, presumably aimed at working around Microsoft's VFAT patents, made the kernel unable to create long file names on VFAT filesystems. It was seen by many as a reduction in functionality without any sort of well-explained justification, and it was not merged. Now there is a new patch which takes a different approach on both the technical and political fronts. Its fate remains to be seen, but it demonstrates a method for dealing with patents which is worthy of wider consideration.

Full Story

  Nav
» Read more about: Groups: Kernel, Microsoft, Linux; Story Type: News Story

« Return to the newswire homepage

This topic does not have any threads posted yet!

You cannot post until you login.