LXer: Microsoft suit over FAT patents could open OSS Pandora's Box
 

Published at LXer:

Microsoft has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against TomTom alleging that the device maker's products, including some that are Linux-based, infringe on patents related to Microsoft's FAT32 filesystem. This marks the first time that Microsoft has enforced its FAT patents against the Linux platform, a move that some free software advocates have long feared could be disastrous.

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It will be interesting to find out how this will be resolved. I'm thinking they won't succeed, but if they do it's simply a matter of making the FAT32 filesystem module separate from the main kernel. In Europe, this won't affect anything.