bleeding edge, thats how they operate...

There were exFAT (aka FAT64 aka fatx) patches floating around for Linux before. In the worst case it will end up like (the unofficial) DVD support in Linux where it's available legally in some countries but its distribution is restricted in others. Eventually Linux also got a closed source, commercial DVD player, but I doubt anyone pays for that except OEMs. If the licensing isn't worked out, things may end up the same way this time.

All that being said, MS is against software patents, so suing some open source developers over implementing this or distributing it would not really mesh well with their lobbying activities. Also, recent court cases (in the US at least) have challenged the idea that things like business plans and software are even patentable.

Hopefully this will all have worked out in favor of Linux/Mac OS by the time these things are even on the market.

iirc, microsoft is not against software patents, they are against the current way they are filed.

software patents are basically what keeps microsoft ahead of the curve. but they want the system altered to get rid of those pesky patent trolls, and their expensive lawsuits...

Microsoft filed most patents last year... not sure about software patents. They surely liked to license FAT32.

You can get legal DVD support on Linux/x86 and Linux/AMD64 (and even other platforms; e.g. (Open)Solaris) quite easily via http://www.fluendo.com this is from the same folks who brought us the GStreamer framework. The MP3 decoder is free as in beer. The other decoders cost money, but are sold in bundles, and they're pretty cheap.

In EU this is probably not required; but in US this will give you legal codecs.

Yeah, MS is totally for software patents. It's what allows them to crush the competition so they don't have to compete. MS hates competition, and if software patents are what does the trick to achieve that, then so be it. Personally, I can't wait until someone actually finds a way to get software patents thrown out. I really feel they're stupid, counter productive, and anti-innovation, and anti-competition. Patents are great for technology that advances slowly, like large scale industrial machines and such. But in the fast paced tech world, by the time you patent it, the technology is already two generations obsolete. So why bother, short of using it as an offensive weapon to stop others from bypassing you? (or extorting them for grievous amounts of cash to stop them from competing against you)

funny thing is that while the time between concept and product have decreased, the time of legaly supported monopoly have either remained static, or increased.

i would say piece of software spends more time in copyright or patent limbo then it do available for sale/license...

exFAT is relevant only if you want to share the devices with other systems - and those other systems will not be able to read/write large FAT32 volumes, which is not very likely. If the card is only in the N8x0 or only shared with linux systems, then any filesystem may be used.

The real question is if it is going to be a software only upgrade as SD to SDHC was.