John Hasler <jhasler@debian.org> wrote:
>
> No. The kernel probably infringes dozens, perhaps hundreds of
> patents. Debian's policy is to ignore patents in the absence of
> evidence that the owner is likely to enforce them on us.
Unfortunately, my understanding is that M$ intends to enforce this
patent. and its not clear to me whether the patent applies to drivers
or to the act of writing a FAT system.
As already suggested, MS tries to generate revenue by licensing the FAT
patents to hardware producers which deliver disks with FAT on it. But I
don't know whether the patents could also be used against software
authors.
If it applies to drivers, I think that linux FAT system is a
clean-room creation and would probably be okay.