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back to article Microsoft FATtens up patent portfolio

Microsoft inked an intellectual property licensing deal with Tuxera Ltd yesterday. Financial terms between Redmond and the Linux software vendor were kept secret. Under the agreement, Helsinki, Finland-based Tuxera has joined Microsoft's exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) driver-licensing program and its Interop Vendor …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Noob

    "They are a great partner, and I am confident that our agreements, and this collaboration, will ensure a bright future for file system interoperability and data portability that benefits device manufacturers and consumers alike.”

    Anyone want to take bets on whether this newbie will be around in 3 years time? They sound incredibly naive...

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  2. northern monkey
    Gates Horns

    Embracing...

    ...and little bit of extending then *BAM* extinguish.

    It's the Microsoft way and we wouldn't expect anything different.

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  3. Gannon (J.) Dick
    Stop

    We cooked it, you eat it.

    Another Minnow promoted to Barracuda by the Sharks.

    Doesn't anybody teach Biology any more ? A penultimate position in the food chain is often a leads to disappointment.

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  4. Cameron Colley

    But they're not open source programmers any more...

    ...at least as far as file system routimes and anything programatically related. Anyone who has seen the MS code now faces the possibility of inadvertantly copying it.

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  5. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Several amusing points

    “As an open source company, we feel excited to sign an intellectual property agreement with Microsoft," said Tuxera boss Mikko Välimäki.

    I simply must laugh at this... very few open source companies are excited to work with Microsoft.

    "They are a great partner,"

    Also this. Microsoft has a rather poor history with their partners and I am just amused at him saying they are a great partner.

    That said, I must admit I don't see any way Microsoft could get an upper hand on exFat et al. The main downside is it helps legitimize the likely illegitimate FAT patents, but I can't see any way Microsoft could screw over exFat in this situation, as much as they may want to.

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  6. lucmars

    But...

    exFat should not be "free-for-all" to "promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts." as Microsoft argued againts the i4i's XML patent in Word ?

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  7. Goat Jam
    Grenade

    The Poplular Peoples Front Of Judea?

    That's him over there . . .

    SPLITTER ! ! ! ! !

    And now for something completely different . . .

    "Tuxera, which offers NTFS and exFAT file system drivers that guarantee plug and play Windows interoperability, was founded by the NTFS-3G open source project."

    Well, I certainly hope that they don't go "improving" on NTFS-3G anymore.

    One has to wonder whether this Mikko chap has even the slightest clue as to who he is dealing with. Microsoft is the Black Widow of the IT world, they will fuck their "partner" and then eat them alive.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    "open source company"...

    ...my arse! Signing patent cartel deals expels you from "open source". Cue whining from the company's representatives about people not being nice to them any more when they're caught doing something dirty, just like another Finnish company I can think of.

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  9. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects 1

    What's the catch?

    Is the target unaware of what potentially useful patentable stuff they have or w00t?

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  10. Sitaram Chamarty
    FAIL

    oh goodie...

    more items to blacklist for me, because it looks like this new standard is going to be (1) all over the place (2) and no open source way to access the files from

    why in the world would a standards body for the SDXC or whatever chips decide to standardise on a file system that is proprietary, in this day and age, I'll never know...

    (other than money changing hands or threats, like the OOXML thing, I suppose)

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