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Get the FAT Out

 

 

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erik at hovland

Apr 2, 2009, 11:22 AM

Post #1 of 7 (602 views)
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Get the FAT Out

After the TomTom noise, I wonder if there is any plan to get FAT usage
out of maemo. At least as the default operating system.

Groklaw's take:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090401152339514

E

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Erik Hovland
erik [at] hovland
http://hovland.org/
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timeless at gmail

Apr 2, 2009, 11:58 AM

Post #2 of 7 (573 views)
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Re: Get the FAT Out [In reply to]

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 9:22 PM, Erik Hovland <erik [at] hovland> wrote:
> After the TomTom noise, I wonder if there is any plan to get FAT usage
> out of maemo. At least as the default operating system.

That doesn't really make much sense.

The default filesystem in Maemo 4 is JFFS2, which is being replaced in
Maemo 5 by UBIFS.

Finally, these questions involve lawyers, and I'd request that you do
us all a favor and not bring it up in a community environment. Some of
us have to deal with lawyers more often than we like while working on
Maemo, and don't need the community giving us more headaches.

Note: FAT is the only interoperable file system for a number of
platforms. This is why most USB Mass Storage
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_mass_storage_device_class>
implementations use it.

Not all systems support MTP
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Transfer_Protocol>, and it
wouldn't shock me if someone complained about it given what is written
in that page.... Also, it has some really sucky limitations, you can't
really use it as a mountable file system (literally in Windows, and
technically to the extent that you can't seem to change your mind
about a file's size as you go....).

Would you rather USB networking
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_over_USB> ? because that
doesn't work out of the box with Windows, which means you couldn't
realistically use a web server as the "solution".

Alternatively, I can unsubscribe from this list and recommend that all
other Nokians follow suit. You *really* don't want to ask employees
who are trying to contribute to be forced to contact lawyers before
they join lists, read them, or contribute. And as to threats, there
are definitely cases where companies have ordered employees to either
leave lists or not join them because of lawyers.

Please please don't do this to us.

Sincerely,
A worried Nokian who doesn't like being forced off-of/out-of/away-from lists
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erik at hovland

Apr 2, 2009, 12:16 PM

Post #3 of 7 (567 views)
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Re: Get the FAT Out [In reply to]

>> After the TomTom noise, I wonder if there is any plan to get FAT usage
>> out of maemo. At least as the default operating system.
>
> That doesn't really make much sense.

Sorry, you're right it doesn't make much sense.

Let me say what a moments more of thought would have had me write.

I wonder if there is any plan to get FAT usage out of maemo. At least
as the default filesystem for the removable flash storage. People
could still use FAT. But it wouldn't be the first choice for maemo.

> The default filesystem in Maemo 4 is JFFS2, which is being replaced in
> Maemo 5 by UBIFS.

You are definitely right.

> Finally, these questions involve lawyers, and I'd request that you do
> us all a favor and not bring it up in a community environment. Some of
> us have to deal with lawyers more often than we like while working on
> Maemo, and don't need the community giving us more headaches.

Wow, strong statement. If I had known that lawyers inspired such scorn
in you, I likely would have probably poised the issue differently.

> Note: FAT is the only interoperable file system for a number of
> platforms. This is why most USB Mass Storage
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_mass_storage_device_class>
> implementations use it.

I agree that FAT currently rules. But there is no technical reason for
it to be king. Only inertia and tradition. There are literally dozens
of other filesystems. Now there is a pretty significant reason to not
consider using FAT.

> Alternatively, I can unsubscribe from this list and recommend that all
> other Nokians follow suit. You *really* don't want to ask employees
> who are trying to contribute to be forced to contact lawyers before
> they join lists, read them, or contribute. And as to threats, there
> are definitely cases where companies have ordered employees to either
> leave lists or not join them because of lawyers.

Once again, I think you are overreacting. But you are welcome to your opinion.

E

--
Erik Hovland
erik [at] hovland
http://hovland.org/
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timeless at gmail

Apr 2, 2009, 12:39 PM

Post #4 of 7 (563 views)
Permalink
Re: Get the FAT Out [In reply to]

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 10:16 PM, Erik Hovland <erik [at] hovland> wrote:
> I wonder if there is any plan to get FAT usage out of maemo.

FWIW, the answer is "we're thinking about it", hence I'm aware of what
we're thinking, but basically, it won't work until all the platforms
with which we'd want to interoperate support something else.

Making a device like ours not work with average consumer devices
doesn't sound like a good idea.
If you aren't Apple, it's very hard to sell "this won't work with your
existing system, please buy a new one"

> Wow, strong statement. If I had known that lawyers inspired such scorn
> in you, I likely would have probably poised the issue differently.

I'd like to note that it should be obvious from most of the places in
Maemo that this is the case, search the top bugs in Bugzilla.

Lawyers are a necessary evil, but it is truly evil to force engineers
to have to talk to them.

> I agree that FAT currently rules. But there is no technical reason for
> it to be king.

> Only inertia and tradition.

These are technical reasons.

Technically I can't take my device and give it any other protocol and
expect it to work well.

e.g. My Windows XP laptop's bluetooth stack is a disaster, so that
rules out trying to get BT OBEX or BT File Transfer as a baseline.

Making me buy a BT dongle for my mac (I did this, most people won't)
would be annoying. Similarly, making me buy a USB WiFi adapter for my
mac (oddly enough, I believe I bought one at some point, but I have no
idea where it is).

The key is that Nokia as a vendor needs something that inter-operates
with whatever our customers are likely to have. Otherwise, there's no
point in including the hardware in the first place. Someday we might
want a product which is bought by normal people
<http://jaaksi.blogspot.com/2008/09/osim-news-whats-up-with-maemo.html>.
When that happens, we can't tell them "oh, we aren't compatible with
your desktop / laptop computer".

> There are literally dozens of other filesystems.
> Now there is a pretty significant reason to not consider using FAT.

Depends who you are. I'm hoping that given that Microsoft *wants* us
to support Silverlight, they'd be willing to compromise with us.

Now, I'm aware that you're a zealot (see previous thread about why
it's bad to be a zealot), but again, being a zealot, or having zeal is
not a good starting point. Again, please let this thread *DIE* and
*QUICKLY*. I'll unsubscribe otherwise.

Note: I work on the browser, I'm not a fan of Flash and am not in a
hurry to see Silverlight in our platform, but MS announced we'd get
it.

> Once again, I think you are overreacting. But you are welcome to your opinion.

I'm not. I'll unsubscribe tomorrow.

I've unsubscribed from other lists (maemo-devel).
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david at dgreaves

Apr 2, 2009, 12:47 PM

Post #5 of 7 (560 views)
Permalink
Re: Get the FAT Out [In reply to]

Erik Hovland wrote:
>>> After the TomTom noise, I wonder if there is any plan to get FAT usage
>>> out of maemo. At least as the default operating system.
>> That doesn't really make much sense.
>
> Sorry, you're right it doesn't make much sense.
>
> Let me say what a moments more of thought would have had me write.
>
> I wonder if there is any plan to get FAT usage out of maemo. At least
> as the default filesystem for the removable flash storage. People
> could still use FAT. But it wouldn't be the first choice for maemo.

It's not. Maemo uses another fs as the rootfs. It's the first choice for CF
cards makers though. Maemo certainly let me format my CF as ext3. I suggest you
do the same :)

Equally I suggest you write to Nokia's legal department for an authoritative
answer from a large commercial entity. This is the community list and has no
authority or knowledge.

If you want to know about FAT in Linux in general or any of the free distros
then try lkml or #mer. I doubt they'll care though :)

>> Alternatively, I can unsubscribe from this list and recommend that all
>> other Nokians follow suit. You *really* don't want to ask employees
>> who are trying to contribute to be forced to contact lawyers before
>> they join lists, read them, or contribute. And as to threats, there
>> are definitely cases where companies have ordered employees to either
>> leave lists or not join them because of lawyers.
>
> Once again, I think you are overreacting. But you are welcome to your opinion.
Actually I think any Nokians reading this list should ignore it unless it's
asked directly. And in that case refer the questioner to a lawyer.

As for suggesting a DOS attack vector (pardon the pun) against corporate
participation... d'oh.
However I suspect Nokia is sufficiently au fait with the legalities around OSS
now that well-meaning questions like this are unlikely to have a negative effect.

In general though Erik this is exactly the kind of discussion that patent owners
want you to stir up.... don't do their dirty work ;)

David

--
"Don't worry, you'll be fine; I saw it work in a cartoon once..."
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erik at hovland

Apr 2, 2009, 1:29 PM

Post #6 of 7 (566 views)
Permalink
Re: Get the FAT Out [In reply to]

> In general though Erik this is exactly the kind of discussion that patent owners
> want you to stir up.... don't do their dirty work ;)

I will kindly slink back to my lurking position.

E

--
Erik Hovland
erik [at] hovland
http://hovland.org/
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dneary at maemo

Apr 3, 2009, 12:01 AM

Post #7 of 7 (555 views)
Permalink
Re: Get the FAT Out [In reply to]

Hi,

timeless wrote:
> Alternatively, I can unsubscribe from this list and recommend that all
> other Nokians follow suit. You *really* don't want to ask employees
> who are trying to contribute to be forced to contact lawyers before
> they join lists, read them, or contribute. And as to threats, there
> are definitely cases where companies have ordered employees to either
> leave lists or not join them because of lawyers.
>
> Please please don't do this to us.
>
> Sincerely,
> A worried Nokian who doesn't like being forced off-of/out-of/away-from lists

There's no need to over-react.

A simple "Not that I'm aware of, and this is something to take up with
Nokia's legal team" would have sufficed.

Dave.

--
maemo.org docsmaster
Email: dneary [at] maemo
Jabber: bolsh [at] jabber

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