Re: exFAT as the new "portable" filesystem?

[Jasper Wallace <jasper%pointless.net@localhost>]

On Wed, 8 Dec 2010, Andy Ruhl wrote:

> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 1:46 PM, Jasper Wallace 
> <jasper%pointless.net@localhost> wrote:
> > Not saber-rattling, you *will* need a licence to ship devices (or, in the
> > US, code) that supports exFAT:
> 
> Well, that ends any chance of using exFAT then.
> 
> > I've used ext2fs to move files between os's see this:
> >
> > http://pointless.net/blog/2009/09/22/maximally-compatible-ext2fs/
> 
> Why use ext2? It's for Linux. Just as UFS is for BSD. There needs to
> be something new.

ext2 is open, so it's for anyone that wants to implement it, netbsd 
supports it, and so do many other OS's...

> Why is it that nobody can agree on a portable filesystem then? I guess
> these companies really don't want to make this easy. FAT32 is still
> the only one that really answers this question, but it's not a good
> answer...

The problem is the windows monopoly, even if someone comes up with a 
filesystem with nice features that can be implemented with a small 
quantity of code (for embedded systems), if end users have to install a 
driver to use it the barrier to entry for consumers will be seen as being 
too high and it won't be adopted.

If it was possibly for 3rd parties to get filesystem drivers on windows 
update (so they would be installed automatticly) then we might have things 
eaiser, but they don't, so we don't.

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[http://pointless.net/]                                   [0x2ECA0975]