[GEM Development] Digital site at Maxframe

[Davey Brain]

Owen Rudge wrote thusly:
>>Has anyone caught up on the news that Microsoft is asserting ownership
>>over the FAT file system and plans to licence it to users? I received a
>>news report on this at work last week, but can't remember where it was.
>>Could be PC Authority or one of the US based magazine/newsletters. I had
>>a quick look at the linked MS site and, from that browse, it looks like
>>the report was pretty correct.
> 
> 
> There's been a big discussion about it on the FreeDOS and ReactOS mailing
> lists. It's typical of Microsoft (or any large corporation these days) to
> wait until something is widely in use (eg, with digital cameras, USB drives,
> etc) and then to decide to start charging for their patents. What the
> implications are for other operating systems are a bit dodgy. Hmmm, have
> Microsoft been taking lessons from SCO?
> 
> Owen Rudge
> http://www.owenrudge.net/
> 
> MSN Messenger: owen at owenrudge.net
> ICQ: 125455765

Has anyone other than me taken a look at the actual patents at the US 
Patent & Trademark website <http://www.uspto.gov>? Let  me cite a couple 
things:

1) The patents M$ cites are apparently for the "technology" behind the 
longname extensions to FAT commonly known as VFAT. This allows you to 
trick the system into using the name "longnamefile001.txt" and FAT 
automagically associates that with "longna~1.txt" when going form VFAT 
to FAT12 or FAT16 and back. That is all that has been "patented" (not 
copyrighted).

2) M$ makes a claim that they developed the FAT FS in 1976 for M$ BASIC. 
I'm scratching my head on that because they got X86 FAT from Seattle 
Data Works with the purchase of QDOS in 1981. Since IBM had to fix over 
300 bugs in the crap M$ delivered to them PC-DOS and FAT were 
"copyrighted" (not patented) by both M$ and IBM for PC-DOS 1.0 in 1981.

3) Please do not confuse "patent" with "copyright" as they have always 
(until now) been two totally  different concepts. Say books had never 
been developed before. If you thought it up then you could patent the 
method of delivering words by printing them on paper and stitching them 
into a binding and calling it a "book". But this would not cover what 
was actually printed within the patented delivery concept  you call a 
"book". The content  would be covered by copyright and would remain the 
property of the person who created that content. They could give you the 
"right" to print their work inside your patented "book" Until now you 
could only copyright actual content, like software or book content not 
concepts. Trademark is another area closely related to copyright and 
more strictly controlled.

With the blurring of the lines between copyright and patent you may now 
"patent" software as a concept for providing a certain application 
service. This was a copyright issue before as I believe it properly 
should be. If software patents had existed in the early computing days, 
we'd have one app to do any job, such as VisiCalc for spreadsheets and 
maybe Electric Pencil for word processing. I blame Apple (and it's 
look-and-feel lawsuits including the one that crippled DRI GEM) for much 
of the slippery slope problems we find ourselves in now. Look and feel 
is closer to a trademark issua that a copyright or patent issua IMHO, 
and trademark law is historically very specific in what can be 
registered (IBM even specifies the exact blue color and the relative 
distances between the blue and whitespace in it's famous IBM trademark).

Also, with the loosening of the old rule that you were not allow to 
register a trademark a "common word" we now have the odd situation where 
"Microsoft (R) can get out the "Word (R)" that to to "Access (R)" your 
data you should buy the "Works (R)" of their company instead of staring 
out the "Windows (R)" in your office. Meanwhile, the Linux camp took off 
the "Redhat (R)" and donned a "Fedora (R)" to talk to the press. Both 
sides promised to employ powerful tools to fight "Spam (R)"!

If you don't believe me, "Google (R)" on it. But get out a box of 
"Kleenex (R)" because what you see will make you cry!

All trademarked words are the property of the respective registered 
trademark owners. All contents of this post (except marked citations 
from previous posts which are the property of the person making said 
posts) are (C) Copyright 2003 D. S. Brain dba C-Cubed Designs and are 
herebye donated into the public domain without compensation. I herebye 
disclaim any liability as to the accuracy or suitablity of any herein 
contained information and the appropriateness of application of said 
information by any person reading this post. (Additional restrictions 
and disclaimers for this material may be found in the full disclaimer 
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-- 
Davey Brain
dsbrain at NOSPAM!neosplice.com or
dsbrain2001 at yahoo.NOSPAM!com

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth" - John F. 
Kennedy

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